HANOI, Vietnam (AP) – Vietnam’s economy is forecast to grow 6.2 percent in 2016, helped by a manufacturing and building boom.
The General Statistics Office said Wednesday that this year’s growth rate is below 2015’s rate of 6.7 percent but is still considered a success given unfavorable global trends and a spate of natural and environmental disasters.
The southern Mekong Delta, the country’s main rice growing region, earlier this year suffered the worst drought and in turn salt water intrusions in nearly a century. Toxic chemicals dumped into the sea in April by a steel complex in central Ha Tinh province, owned by a unit of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics Group, devastated the region’s fishing and tourism industries.
Natural disasters caused 18.3 trillion dong ($813 million) worth of damage, the statistics office said.
Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc listed a trend toward protectionism and the unpredictable situation in the South China Sea, where China and other nations hold conflicting territorial claims, as challenges in a meeting with other government officials.