Vietnam targets Q4 growth of 7.1-7.7 pct y y - government

By My Pham

HANOI, Oct 29 (Reuters) - Vietnam targets economic growth in the final quarter of this year of 7.1-7.7 percent, a government senior official said on Saturday.

The rate will help the country achieve full-year growth of 6.3-6.5 percent, government spokesman Mai Tien Dung told a news conference.

"The speed of economic growth will affect public debt," Dung said.

The government this month lowered Vietnam's 2016 gross domestic product growth target to 6.3-6.5 percent from a previous target of 6.7 percent after the economy slowed in the first nine months of the year.

Lower GDP is expected to push Vietnam's public debt ratio closer to a ceiling of 65 percent of GDP and pose more challenges for Vietnam's already tight state budget, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said last week in an address to the country's national assembly.

Adverse weather, including drought in the coffee belt, and soil salinity in the mekong tour ho chi minh Delta, have put the brakes on Vietnam's rapid growth, biting into its industrial and agricultural production, its exports and imports.

Vietnam's economy expanded 6.68 percent in 2015, the fastest pace since 2007 and extending growth momentum that started in 2012. (Reporting by My Pham; Editing by Stephen Powell)