Vietnam's retail sales, services up 21.5% in first four months

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Report: Global Financial Crisis

HANOI, May 4 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's retail sales and services in the first
four months this year went up 21.5 percent over the same period last year to
360.4 trillion Vietnamese dong (21.2 billion U.S. dollars), according to the
General Statistics Office of Vietnam on Monday.

Of which, trading experienced an increase of 22.2 percent to 16.6 billion
U.S. dollars, hotels and restaurants up 18.4 percent to 2.4 billion U.S.
dollars, tourism up 21.5 percent to 223 million U.S. dollars, and services up
16.3 percent to 2 billion U.S. dollars, said the office.

The increase in the country's retail sales and services in this period was
attributed to the ongoing positive impacts of the government's timely stimulus
package on investment and consumption, said Le Dinh An, director of the National
Center of Information and Socio-Economic Forecast under the Ministry of Planning
and Investment cited by the Vietnam Investment Review as saying.

An also forecast that Vietnam is likely to see the purchasing power in the
coming months further increasing partially because of the higher monthly salary
decided by the government taking effect since May 1 this year.