Vietnam says its trade deficit widened to an estimated 16.2 billion dollars for the first 10 months of the year, in part due to machinery, steel and petroleum imports.

Newly-released official figures show imports to October reached 70 billion dollars, up more than 42 percent, while exports increased by almost 37 percent, totalling around 54 billion dollars.

Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said last week that the trade deficit would reach 19 billion dollars by year's end and predicted economic growth would slow to between six-and-a-half to seven percent for 2008