Vietnam should be more flexible in handling its exchange rate, and is on track to cut its public debt to about 60 percent of gross domestic product by 2020, its finance minister said in an interview on Wednesday. The dong currency has weakened 2.5 percent this year, which traders say stems from the U.S-China trade war, and remains near a record low against the US dollar hit last month.
Vietnam's central bank has been building up US dollar reserves to shore up the dong, which experts have advised should be allowed to depreciate more and better reflect market conditions. "If the dong loses value and we still prop it up, it's not beneficial in the long term," Dinh Tien Dung told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on ASEAN in Hanoi.