Vietnam targets growth acceleration in Communist Party economic blueprint

The Communist Party is targeting on raising Vietnam's profile beyond a low-cost labour destination to a centre for science and technology. - VN

HANOI (Reuters): Having sidestepped the worst of the coronavirus pandemic so far, Vietnam aims to rev up its economy over the next five years, trusting on its custom-tooled mix of free trade deals, privatisation and tight Covid-19 curbs.

Armed with a raft of free trade deals envied by regional peers and increasingly luring factories away from China, the ruling Communist Party on Monday formally approved ambitions to raise growth beyond an annual 6% in the pre-pandemic era to 6.5%-7.0% for the 2021-2025 period.