Leading economic experts forecast an optimistic growth outlook for Viet Nam in 2021 despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

Export-oriented processing and manufacturing is believed to be one of the growth drivers in 2021 (Photo: VNA)

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, key indexes show that the economy is bouncing back well and showing an optimistic trend.

In the first four months of this year, total retail sales of goods and consumer service revenue topped 1.69 quadrillion VND (over 73 billion USD), up 10 percent year on year, while exports were estimated at 103.9 billion USD, rising 28.3 percent.

Assoc Prof and PhD Dinh Trong Thinh, a senior economist from the Academy of Finance, noted that nearly 44,200 new enterprises were established during the four months, registering 627.7 trillion VND and over 340,000 employees. The figures respectively grew 17.5 percent, 41 percent, and 7.8 percent from a year earlier.

These encouraging statistics showed that businesses are confident in the recovery and growth capacity of the economy, he went on.

Assoc Prof and PhD Nguyen Thuong Lang from the National Economics University shared the view that the good macro-economic indexes indicate the economy has developed in a right direction over the last four months.

With that recovery trend, the economy will operate effectively in the coming months, he affirmed.

The Vietnamese economy is generally still in the recovery process, and it needs policy and mechanism support from the Government to further accelerate recovery and growth, according to Deputy Director of the Academy of Finance’s Institute of Economics – Finance PhD Nguyen Duc Do.

PhD Tran Thi Hong Minh, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), held that although Viet Nam is one of the few countries having succeeded in controlling COVID-19, which has created a prerequisite for promoting domestic production and safely reopening the economy, it is also necessary to make a plan for a longer term that should include stepping up administrative reforms and boosting momentum for economic institutional reforms.

Andrew Jeffries, Country Director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Viet Nam, noted the economy is forecast to expand by 6.7 percent in 2021, with growth drivers being industry, especially export-oriented processing and manufacturing, investment increase, and trade expansion.

Industry is predicted to go up 9.5 percent and the services sector 6 percent. Meanwhile, trade will remain strong this year thanks to export and import activities with the US and China, two major trading partners of Viet Nam. The country’s participation in 15 free trade agreements with most of the developed economies in the world will also fuel exports even more.