Hanoi - Vietnam's industrial production fell 8.6 per cent in
January from the month before, media reports said Thursday, as the
global economic downturn hit the country's export-dependent economy.
The drop left industrial output 4.4 per cent lower than in January
2008, according to data from the Planning and Investment Ministry.
Exports, which account for 70 per cent of Vietnam's gross domestic
product (GDP), were down 24.2 per cent from the same month last year.
The sharp drop in production and exports threatened to derail the
government's prediction of 5 per cent GDP growth in 2009. Vietnam's
economic growth already fell from 8.5 per cent in 2007 to 6.2 per
cent last year.
'The sectors that fell the furthest [in January] were exports,
like textiles, garments, and shoes,' said Phan Chi Dung, head of the
Trade Ministry's Industrial Consumer Product Department. 'They all
decreased between 25 and 30 per cent. In the domestic market,
purchasing power also decreased.'
New foreign direct investment commitments were 185 million dollars
in January, down about 90 per cent from a year earlier, according to
the Planning and Industry Ministry. In 2008, Vietnam attracted more
than 60 billion dollars in such commitments.
The tourism industry contracted as well with foreign visitors in
January down 12 per cent year-on-year.
In a meeting with government leaders Wednesday, Prime Minister
Nguyen Tan Dung pressed ministries and agencies to speed up projects
that could boost industrial exports and domestic demand.
Vietnam's government announced a 1-billion-dollar stimulus package
late last year to raise domestic demand. Some of that money is to be
used by the central bank to provide a 4-per cent-interest-rate
subsidy on loans used for projects in high-priority sectors, the
State Bank of Vietnam announced Wednesday.
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