During the monthly cabinet meeting on Sunday in Hanoi, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked ministries and local authorities to make more efforts to stabilize macro-economy and constrain inflation.  The PM emphasized that effective measures should be taken to tackle bad debts, strengthen control over market and prices, ensure the balance of demand and supply, expand production, boost trade and investment, and enlarge markets.

He also requested concerned agencies to allocate capital sources in building new hospitals and upgrading overloaded ones in major provinces and cities.

As regards performances in the past nine months, cabinet members agreed that the national economy has been developing on the right track, with economic growth being improved, inflation restrained, interest rates lowered, and credit growth boosted. According to reports from ministries, the country gained a national gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 5.14 percent in the first nine months of this year, while the consumer price index (CPI) for September rose 4.63 percent, the lowest increase over the past four years. In the period, export turnover amounted to nearly US$96.5 billion, up 15.7 percent year on year, while agricultural production recover remarkably, with agro-forestry-fishery exports up 0.5 percent over the past three quarters.

At the same time, due attention has been paid to policies on job generation and social welfare as well as political security and social order, said Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Cao Duc Phat.

However, the meeting’s participants shared the same comment that the economic recovery is still slow, budget revenue is low and purchasing power is limited. Many cabinet members also suggested the synchronous and drastic implementation of policies on social welfare, housing, new-style rural areas and job generation, among others.