Vietnam: Deputy premier presents government report to assembly.

(From BBC Monitoring International Reports)

Vietnam has continued to make progress in socioeconomic development despite a "blip" in tourism and aviation revenues caused by SARS, according to a report delivered to the National Assembly in Hanoi. The deputy prime minister presented statistics on the economy and also outlined foreign policy initiatives. The following is the text of a report by Vietnamese radio text web site on 3 May

Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung delivered a government report on developing all resources, overcoming difficulties, and successfully implementing tasks set for 2003 at the opening of the 11th National Assembly's Third Session in Hanoi on 3 May.

Deputy Prime Minister Dung said that Vietnam has gained remarkable achievements in socioeconomic development over the past four months, with a year-on-year increase of 0.4 per cent in GDP to 6.9 per cent in the first quarter. He said more positive changes have been seen in four months' socioeconomic development with new factors and effective production and business models.

He stressed that Vietnam has maintained the macro-economic stability in the complicated developments of the world economy. Vietnam registered an industrial production value of 15.5 per cent over the past four months, a year-on-year increase of 1.4 per cent. The State sector saw a rise of 12.2 per cent; the private sector, 18.9 per cent; and the foreign-invested sector, 16.6 per cent. Main industrial products retained high increases, including rolled steel, seafood, garments, diesel and electric engines, cement, farm tools, automobiles, ships, and …