Vietnam must hit 8.4% Q4 GDP growth to reach 2025 target: PM

He made the call at a government meeting held on Saturday in Hanoi, which was connected online with all 34 provinces and centrally-run cities nationwide.

The meeting reviewed Vietnam’s socio-economic performance in October and the first ten months of 2025, and set out key tasks for the remainder of the year.

The chief of government commended relevant agencies and localities for their concerted efforts to deliver strong results over the past ten months, creating solid momentum toward fulfilling the targets for both 2025 and the 2021–25 period.

The meeting took place as the economy posted growth of 6.93 percent in the first quarter, 7.96 percent in the second, and 8.22 percent in the third, demonstrating robust recovery and resilience, according to economic newspaper VnEconomy.

As a result, GDP expanded 7.85 percent in the January–September period.

Building on this momentum, PM Chinh set the fourth-quarter growth target at 8.4 percent, stressing that such expansion is vital to achieving the full-year goal of 8.3–8.5 percent, as outlined in a government resolution issued in August.

Specifically, the industrial sector is expected to grow about 9.4 percent, the services sector around 8.3 percent, and the agricultural sector roughly four percent in the fourth quarter, while the digital economy is projected to make up around 20 percent of GDP.

However, the prime minister acknowledged that Vietnam still faces several challenges.

Macroeconomic management remains under pressure from exchange rate, interest rate, and inflation risks amid global volatility.

Business conditions are difficult, particularly for small and medium enterprises, with over 190,000 suspending operations.

Traditional growth drivers have underperformed, as public investment disbursement remains slow, large-scale foreign direct investment inflows are limited, and export growth shows signs of slowing.

Efforts to streamline administrative structures and local governance also remain inconsistent in some localities.

Meanwhile, natural disasters and floods have caused estimated losses of about VND40 trillion (US$1.52 billion) and could shave roughly 0.2 percentage points off 2025 GDP growth.

Prime Minister Chinh called for stronger efforts to overcome these obstacles and ensure the fulfillment of the 2025 socio-economic development targets.

He outlined a series of priority tasks, including maintaining macroeconomic stability, accelerating economic restructuring, revitalizing traditional growth drivers while fostering new ones, controlling inflation, improving growth quality and labor productivity, and strengthening the application of science, technology, innovation, digital transformation, and green practices.

In particular, he instructed the entire political system to fully disburse planned public investment capital, simplify administrative procedures, attract more foreign direct investment, and stimulate private investment.

For new growth drivers, emphasis should be placed on science and technology, innovation, digital transformation, the green and circular economy, creative industries, free trade zones, and emerging sectors such as semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and renewable energy.

The meeting also heard reports from ministry leaders on plans and measures to build on recent achievements and address existing bottlenecks to support national socio-economic targets.

On efforts to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, Minister of Agriculture and Environment Tran Duc Thang stressed the need for stronger measures to have the European Commission (EC) lift its ‘yellow card’ warning against Vietnam’s seafood sector.

He added that an EC inspection team is scheduled to visit Vietnam for the fifth IUU fishing review on November 24.