Conflict risk in South China Sea could hurt global trade - Vietnam PM

MANILA (Reuters) - Territorial tensions in the South China Sea endangers global trade and puts at risk recovery from a global financial crisis, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said on Thursday. Vietnam is currently embroiled in a maritime border dispute with China, after Beijing deployed an oil rig at the Paracel islands, an area which Hanoi said is within its 200-nautical mile economic zone. "The risk of conflict will disrupt these huge flows of goods, and have unforeseeable impact on regional and world economies. It may even reverse the trend of global economic recovery," Dung told participants of the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Manila, noting that two-thirds of global trade pass through the South China Sea. This version of the story removes an erroneous reference to Spratlys, that was filed in the earlier version. (Reporting by Rosemarie Francisco; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)