HANOI - Vietnam has set an economic growth target of between 7 and 8 percent a year in the 2011-2015 period, lowering by half a percentage point the floor of the range as compared with its target for the previous five years.

"The overall target for the five year socio-economic development plan is a fast and sustained economic expansion," Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung wrote in a directive.

Dung also called for a "complete market economy" and a "transparent, fair and stable investment environment".

Vietnam's economy grew at an average annual rate of 7.5 per cent between 1996 and 2005, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

The government target for gross domestic product growth in the five years from 2006 to 1010 was 7.5 percent to 8 percent.

Dung did not say why the range had been widened, although the global economic recession push the Southeast Asian country's first quarter GDP growth to its slowest rate in years.

Late last month, the government proposed to parliament that the GDP target for this year be lowered to about 5 percent, although many economists say that will be a difficult mark to hit.

Last year, GDP growth was 6.2 percent and in 2007 it was 8.5 percent. -Reuters