Leading economists have an optimistic growth outlook for Viet Nam in 2021 despite the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, key indexes show 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 VND1.69 quadrillion (more than US$73 billion), up 10 per cent year-on-year, while exports were estimated at $103.9 billion, rising 28.3 per cent.

Assoc Prof and PhD Dinh Trong Thinh, a senior economist from the Academy of Finance, said nearly 44,200 new enterprises were established during the four months, registering VND627.7 trillion and more than 340,000 employees. The figures respectively grew 17.5 per cent, 41 per cent, and 7.8 per cent from a year earlier.

These encouraging statistics showed businesses were confident in the recovery and growth capacity of the economy, he added.

Assoc Prof and PhD Nguyen Thuong Lang from the National Economics University said the good macro-economic indexes indicated the economy had developed in the right direction over the last four months.

With that recovery trend, the economy would operate effectively in the coming months, he said.

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

Tran Thi Hong Minh, Director of the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), said although Viet Nam was one of the few countries to have succeeded in controlling COVID-19, which had created a prerequisite for promoting domestic production and safely reopening the economy, it was 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 was forecast to expand by 6.7 per cent in 2021, with growth drivers being industry, especially export-oriented processing and manufacturing, investment increases, and trade expansion.

The industry sector was predicted to grow 9.5 per cent and the services sector 6 per cent. Meanwhile, trade would remain strong this year thanks to exports and imports 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 would also fuel exports. — VNS