Vietnam obtains GDP growth of 2.8% in 2020: Finance Minister

According to the minister, the government estimated that the national economy would grow by 6.8% and inflation would be controlled at 4% this year.

However, the COVID-19 outbreak that began earlier this year has dealt a heavy blow to global economic recovery efforts. International financial institutions still made their forecasts the global economy would grow negatively in 2020.

Domestically, along with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, trade disputes among global powers and natural disasters also badly impacted production and business operations.

“In such a difficult context, the good news is that Vietnam’s economy is still expected to grow by about 2.8% compared to 2019, a significant figure among new emerging economies,” Minister Dung said at a press briefing in Hanoi on Dec. 25.

He said the financial sector has adopted a number of fiscal policies to remove difficulties for business and production. Overall, the sector has disbursed approximately VND105 trillion to assist businesses and people to weather the COVID-19 crisis and natural disasters.  

Along with maintaining the economic growth at a relative level, Dung said that the local stock market has so far maintained its stability amid volatile fluctuations of the global market, and “this is a bright spot of the financial sector in 2020”.

“Such a stable market helped stabilize the financial market, because this is an important channel of capital mobilization,” the minister noted.

The initial success in containing the COVID-19 outbreak and maintaining economic development prompted international financial institutions to revise their forecasts for Vietnam.

In its December 2020 report, the Asian Development Bank raised Vietnam’s GDP growth from 1.8% to 2.3% this year. Meanwhile, the World Bank forecast in its December update that Vietnam’s economy would grow by 2.8% this year and 6.8% in 2021.