Foreign expert optimistic about Vietnam’s economic outlook

Along with the self-recovery of businesses and people, economic achievements that Vietnam has gained so far this year have shown the efficiency of the Government’s economic management and the bright prospect of the country’s economy this year, held Associate Prof. Dr. Chu Hoang Long from Crawford School of Public Policy, the Australian National University.

Long cited the General Statistics Office data showing that the Vietnamese economy expanded 8.8% year on year in the third quarter of 2022, the highest in 10 years.

The country’s exports in the first nine months of this year grew over 17%, while the disbursement of foreign direct investment (FDI) increased 16%, a record rate in the recent five years, ensuring major economic balances. A number of reputation credit rankers in the world such as S&P and Moody’s has raised Vietnam’s credit ranking, he noted.

The expert underlined that economic results of the country has manifested the effective management of the Vietnamese Government in 2022. This has a significant meaning in the context as many countries are struggling with macro-economic instability, record inflation.

Dr. Long highlighted Vietnam’s efforts in controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, restructuring its economy, improving business environment and removing difficulties for production and business activities, as well as speeding up economic recovery and development and reining in inflation.

Particularly, despite impacts of the pandemic, Vietnam has actively engaged in joint efforts of the world in climate change response and natural disaster prevention and control, while giving strong commitments at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26).

Regarding the Vietnamese economic outlook, Dr. Long expressed his belief that the Vietnamese Government will further promote the achievements to secure higher development in the future.

With the recovery trend in the first nine months of 2022, the expert showed optimism about Vietnam’s economic prospects in the future. Some international organisations forecast that Vietnam’s economic growth will be 7-7.5% this year and 6.7% or even higher in 2023. Vietnam is expected to become one of the major consumption markets in the world in the beginning of next decade, he added.

However, according to Dr. Long, difficulties are still there for Vietnam, as businesses need more time to continue to recover and there are risks from high inflation and a high rate of bad debts, along with fluctuations from the outside.

He gave a number of recommendations for Vietnam regarding economic policies, including the settlement of bottlenecks in institution, the application of a cautious monetary policy, and the full implementation of the economic recovery and development support programme through the speeding up of infrastructure projects and the strengthening of digital technologies. The expert also stressed the need for Vietnam to promote in-depth economic restructuring by renovating the growth model./.