Vietnam GDP Growth Slows in First Quarter as Banks Struggle

Vietnam’s growth slowed in the first quarter, putting pressure on the government to revive bank lending in an economy hobbled by bad debt.

Gross domestic product expanded 4.89 percent in the first three months of the year from the same period a year earlier, the General Statistics Office said in Hanoi today. That compares with a previously reported 5.44 percent pace in the last quarter of 2012 and the median estimate of 5.2 percent in a Bloomberg survey of 10 economists. Growth in the first quarter of 2012 was revised to 4.75 percent, the Statistics Office said.