Trend may dilute rapid GDP gains of recent years
Vietnam's exploding population is threatening to undermine the country's fast-moving economic development, state authorities fear.
Officials expect 2004 will be the second consecutive year that Vietnam sees a record population increase. At present growth rates, the population will reach 100 million by 2010. The government hopes to postpone this milestone to 2025.
Officials say the trend threatens to worsen overcrowding in Vietnam, whose population density - 250 people per sq km - is already more than 50 per cent higher than the average in Asia.
This could stretch public services and dilute the rapid gross domestic product gains Vietnam has posted in recent years in efforts to overcome poverty and isolation.
'Vietnam has a big population but is still a very poor country,' said Ta Thanh Hang, deputy director of the Commission for Population, Family and Children.
