Vietnam is always the first in Asia to publish quarterly GDP and the Q3 data published today showed that its economic recovery is gaining strength. The improvement, as in China, is coming on the back of a big expansion of credit to the state sector and to the private sector. Sustained and strong recovery should be expected but inflation will probably pick up sharply too. Vietnam should, and probably will, start to hike rates soon to head off the risk that it suffers another overheating crisis.