Vietnam’s socio-economic development in July and over the past seven months continues showing positive signs and has been on the right track, said Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

The trend will go on, particularly in curbing inflation, maintaining macro-economic stability, and promoting agricultural and industrial production, the Prime Minister affirmed at the monthly Cabinet meeting in Hanoi on July 30-31.

However, he said, economic growth during the past seven months is lower when compared to previous years. Therefore, it will be difficult to fulfill this year’s GDP growth target of 5.2 - 5.7 percent.

He urged all ministries, sectors and local authorities to focus efforts assisting businesses to boost production, particularly those facing difficulty.

Priority in access to credit should be given to businesses operating in key sectors such as agriculture, manufacturing products for export and supporting industries, the PM noted.

As an effort to maintain macro-economic stability and curb inflation, Dung asked the State Bank of Vietnam to restructure debts and reduce bad debts using synchronous measures, while restructuring weak commercial banks and maintaining a stable exchange rate.

In addition, he instructed ministries, sectors and local authorities to review State-owned enterprises to improve their production and business effectiveness while speeding up disbursement of official development assistance (ODA), State budget and foreign direct investment sources, as well as improving social welfare and national target initiatives.

During the two-day meeting, Cabinet members focused on measures to remove the difficulties facing businesses, especially those regarding capital sources.

They agreed that measures to curb inflation and stabilise the economy have continued to prove effective.

As a result, the consumer price index (CPI) has steadily decreased throughout the year, especially over the past two months.

Credit institutions have made a lot of effort in lowering the interest rate on loans to a maximum of 15 percent per year, from July 15.

The country’s total export turnover also exceeded US$62.9 billion, up by 19 percent over the same period last year, they said.

However, they admitted that many businesses still face a wide range of difficulties, especially when trying to access credit sources.

In addition, low domestic purchasing power, large stockpiles of goods and more businesses announcing bankruptcy are also major challenges for the country’s economy.

At the meeting the Government also discussed several projects, including plans on comprehensive education reform and the development of science and technologies to help with industrialisation, modernisation and international integration.