HANOI, June 29: Vietnam’s economic growth slowed to 4.38 per cent in the first half of 2012, its most sluggish rate for three years as the government prioritises fighting inflation, data released on Friday showed.

The figure from the General Statistics Office (GSO) falls short of the 5.63 per cent growth achieved over the same period last year and lags a government target of 6 to 6.5 per cent growth for the whole of 2012. Vietnam posted a record 8.4 per cent growth in 2005 but economic expansion has edged down since with businesses struggling to combat high inflation and a weak currency.

Industrial growth was sluggish at 3.81 per cent while agriculture was also weak at 2.81 per cent after a virus affected pigs, the GSO said.

“Economic growth, in the first half, is low due to difficulties in several sectors, especially in industrial production,” according to the GSO report.

Analysts said the figures do not augur well for the months ahead. “We expect that growth will disappoint for the rest of this year and next,” Capital Economics said in briefing statement.

“We are keeping our forecasts for 2012 and 2013 at 5.0 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively,” it said, adding Friday’s figures “represent a significant slowdown from the impressive rates.... Vietnam was recording in the middle of the last decade.” The communist country’s government has successfully curbed high inflation with consumer prices slowing to their weakest pace in more than two years in June, at 6.9 per cent year-on-year.—AFP