Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen TanDung on Thursday called for the national efforts to combat current national economic slowdown and try the best to realize the target of 6.5 percent economic growth in 2009, the local newspaper Young People reported on Friday.

Dung made the remark at the conference on the National Assembly's resolution on socio-economic development plan and state budget estimates for 2009 in Ho Chi Minh City.

"The urgent tasks for the country now are to boost foreign investment, stimulate domestic production, consumption, and exports to sustain the country's economic target," said Dung.

Participants at the conference discussed measures to make the best use of the government's US$1 billion stimulus package. They said that the development investment priority should be given to the country's agriculture and rural development in such areas as irrigation, transport infrastructure and electricity.

Regarding the state budget for 2009, Vietnam's state budget revenue is expected to stand at US$23 billion, a decrease of 2.3 percent compared to the estimated figure of 2008. The country's budget spending is forecast at 29 billion dollars, an increase of 3.6 percent over the estimated figure of 2008.

(Xinhua News Agency December 26, 2008)