Vietnam’s 2023 growth target ‘extremely difficult’ to reach says deputy minister

Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Phuong Quoc Tran has told Vietnam News that reaching the government’s 6.5 percent GDP growth target by the end of the year will be challenging–at the end of June growth was at 3.72 percent. He says low demand is weighing heavily on exports and that economic growth in the last half of the year would be largely dependent on the disbursement of public funds. Reducing red tape could also spur growth, he says, but does not outline where red tape might be cut.