Vietnam central bank sees inflation ‘problem' as economy grows (08/05)
06/08/2010 - 80 Lượt xem
| Vietnam is facing “problems'' keeping inflation in check as the economy expands and investment in the country increases, the newswire Bloomberg quoted a central bank official as saying. | |
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Consumer prices rose 7.2 percent in April from a year earlier, the fastest pace in eight months, spurred by higher costs for housing and construction materials. The State Bank of Vietnam (SBV) expects inflation to be below the rate of growth in the economy, which the government forecasts to be 8.5 percent, said Pham Bao Lam, a deputy director general at the central bank. “High economic growth means high inflation,'' Lam told a seminar Saturday on the sidelines of the Asian Development Bank annual meeting in Kyoto. “We try to control the balance by pursuing very tight monetary policy in order to avoid inflation from going out of control.'' Vietnam's economic growth has accelerated in each of the past three years. Pledges of foreign investment, which increased 49 percent to $10.2 billion last year, are gaining after the Southeast Asian nation became a member of the World Trade Organization in January. Intel Corp. of Santa Clara, California, the world's biggest maker of computer chips, plans to spend $1 billion to build a plant in Vietnam. Osaka-based Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., the world's biggest consumer electronics maker, opened two factories in the nation in April. Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung this year loosened currency controls and announced plans to increase sales of state-owned assets. The new currency market gives investors more opportunities to bet on an economy that expanded at a 7.7 percent annual rate in the first quarter and may grow 8.3 percent this year, according to the Asian Development Bank. The dong climbed 0.7 percent between Nov. 22 and Feb. 21, and erased gains since as regulators curbed borrowing for stock market investment. “The strengthening of the dong is a big challenge because of the inflow of foreign investment,'' Pham said in an interview at the sidelines of the meeting. `”That is similar to other countries in the region. We have to accommodate to the situation.'' Source: Bloomberg | |
