Vietnam outperformed all of its regional peers in South East Asia last year, data shows, as the nation’s economy grew by 2.9 percent from a year ago, despite the coronavirus pandemic.
Vietnam’s GDP growth is better than China’s forecast – beating 2.3 percent growth during the same period.
Data compiled by CNBC from official sources, including from the Vietnamese government’s estimates and institutions like the International Monetary Fund, showed that Vietnam was likely the top-performing Asian economy in 2020.
“With this performance, Vietnam has delivered one of the highest growth [rates] in a year where the rest of the world were in deep recessions,” economists from Bank of America Global Research said in a report this month. They projected that the strong economic run will likely continue this year, forecasting the Vietnamese economy to grow 9.3 percent in 2021.
Also on rt.com China about to pull off ‘diplomatic coup’ by striking world’s largest free trade agreement“Considering that Vietnam has been a major beneficiary of the supply chain relocation/diversification trend out of China over the past several years, we see large scope for growth in Vietnamese exports in the years to come,” said Fitch Solutions. It added that Vietnam’s signing of new trade agreements, including with the United Kingdom and the European Union, could further boost trade flows.
“By the end of 2021, we think GDP will be only 1.5 percent lower than it would have been had the crisis not happened. This is one of the smallest gaps in the region,” said Gareth Leather, senior Asia economist at Capital Economics.
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