Vietnam's economic growth in 2014 is forecast to be lower than that of 2013, ranging from 4.15 to 4.88 percent, said a local expert.
Nguyen Duc Thanh, director of Vietnam Center for Economic and Policy Research under Vietnam National University made the prediction at a launching ceremony of Vietnam Annual Economic Report 2014 held in capital Hanoi on Thursday.
State-run radio VOV quoted Thanh as saying at the ceremony that Vietnamese economy is recovering, but the process remains "light and fragile."
The report released two scenarios for Vietnam's macro-economic prospects this year. Accordingly, Vietnam's gross domestic production (GDP) is forecast to range from 4.15 to 4.88 percent in 2014, which is lower than that of 5.42 percent in 2013.
The predictions remain much lower than that of Vietnam National Financial Supervisory Committee (NFSC) which was released in early April.
According to NFSC, "Vietnam's GDP in the first quarter of 2014 reached 4.96 percent. The growing trend is expected in the last three quarters this year, which makes the prospect of meet set target for GDP growth of 5.8 percent in 2014 become brighter."
In a related move, in early April, Asian Development Bank made a forecast that Vietnam's GDP will go up slightly at 5.6 percent in 2014.