Vietnam’s economy this year can continue to thrive amid better prospects of foreign direct investment inflow and export revenues but low productivity remains a concern, economists said, Yahoo reported. Last month, the Asian Development Bank lifted its economic growth forecast for Vietnam to 6.7% in 2018 from its previous projections of 6.3 to 6.5%. The World Bank gave a more conservative forecast of 6.5%. Meanwhile, after a 10-year high GDP growth of 6.81% in 2017, the government expects the economy to expand 6.5-6.7% this year. Being an export oriented economy, Vietnam’s somewhat surprisingly fast growth last year owes a lot to the recovering global economy, which expanded 3% in 2017, the highest rate since 2011. This trend would continue, said economist Vo Tri Thanh. Vietnam’s export revenue expanded by 21% against 2016 to $213.7 billion, the highest in the past five years. Following what Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc called a “year of records”, the country is targeting export growth of 7-8% this year.
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