According to statistics recently released by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, the Vietnamese economy grew by 2.62% in the third quarter of this year, which was higher than the 0.39% increase in the second quarter. The International Monetary Fund recently predicted that Vietnam’s GDP this year is expected to grow by 1.6%.
The accelerated recovery of the Vietnamese economy has benefited from effective epidemic prevention and control. The Vietnamese government has put forward a strategy of placing equal emphasis on epidemic prevention and control and economic development. It has adopted a series of isolation measures such as suspension of business and production in areas with more severe epidemics, strictly controlled inbound flights, and increased financial and policy support for enterprises. The State Bank of Vietnam has issued 250 trillion VND (approximately 72.23 billion yuan) preferential credit, and lowered loan interest rates three times to reduce corporate financing costs. The Vietnam General Administration of Taxation provides supportive measures such as extending the tax period and exempting late payment fees for companies in need. The labor department allows companies in difficulty to postpone the payment of pensions, and the trade union organization agrees to postpone the payment of union dues.
Facing the decline in foreign direct investment and social capital investment, Vietnam has boosted the economy by increasing public investment in roads and other infrastructure. Recently, three sections of the North-South Expressway in Vietnam started simultaneously. In the first three quarters of this year, the growth rate of public investment in Vietnam reached a record high in the past five years.
Nguyen Bilin, an economist and former director of the Vietnam General Administration of Statistics, believes that China’s strong economic recovery is an important external factor for the optimistic prospects of Vietnam’s economic recovery. According to the statistics of the General Administration of Customs of Vietnam, Vietnam imported two major categories of goods from China with a value of more than ten billion U.S. dollars in the first three quarters: computers, electronic products and parts, and machinery and equipment. At the same time, China has also become an important export market for Vietnam’s high-value-added commodities, with overall exports to China increasing by 12.7% in the first three quarters.
At present, the external market still exerts great pressure on the Vietnamese economy. François Panchow, chief representative of the International Monetary Fund’s Vietnam office, believes that Vietnam’s tourism, transportation, and hotel industries have been the most severely affected by the epidemic. The report issued by the Institute of Vietnam Investment and Development Bank pointed out that from the fourth quarter of this year to next year, Vietnam still needs to focus on preventing consumption and investment panic caused by the rebound of the epidemic, as well as the risks of increased government debt and deficits.
