Vietnam’s short-term economic outlook positive: PwC

In its updated report on Vietnam’s economy in the first half of 2023, PwC said that Vietnam is still expected one of the few countries in the world that can maintain strong economic growth in 2023 while the others will continue to experience a serious slowdown.

In the first half of this year, Vietnam’s socio-economic development faced challenges and instabilities from the global economy, with a gross domestic product (GDP) expansion of only 3.72% year-on-year.

The country’s service sector recovered thanks to policies to stimulate domestic consumption and reopen its economy.

Besides, the stock market is adversely affected by government policy on inflation control and negative events in the international financial market including the bankruptcy of banks.

While both the agro-forestry-fishery and services sectors tended to recover positively, industry and construction were hard hit by political turmoil around the world.

In the first half of 2023, Vietnam posted a trade surplus of $12.1 million, but the total export value decreased by about 12% compared to the same period last year.

Except for agriculture, chemicals, paper products, and means of transport and components, most of the sectors saw their exports decrease by 10-20% over the same period.

Vietnam’s exports slowed down due to the impact of falling consumption in the main export markets, with respective year-on-year decreases of 22%, 10%, 10%, and 9% in the export value to the US, the Republic of Korea, the EU, and ASEAN.

The U.S. remained the biggest importer of Vietnam, accounting for 30% of the Southeast Asian nation's total export turnover. It was followed by China and the EU.

However, PwC believes that Vietnam's short-term economic outlook is still positive, with 2023 GDP growth of over 5% as forecast by Fitch, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and Asian Development Bank (ADB).