Vietnam tipped for growth of up to 6.2% in second quarter
VIETNAM’S gross domestic product is forecast to expand 5.6 per cent or 6.27 per cent in the second quarter of this year, depending on two scenarios, expert say.
Dang Duc Anh, director of the National Centre for Socio-Economic Information and Forecast (NCEIF)’s analysis and forecast department, was speaking at seminar on the country’s macro-economic growth in Hanoi.
Under the first scenario of 5.6 per cent GDP growth, Anh said that processing and manufacturing industries in the second quarter would grow higher than in the first quarter, and the slowdown of the mining industry would be lower than that in first quarter. The foreign exchange rate would be relatively stable and credit growth would continue to rise in the second quarter, Anh said, adding that disbursement of state investment capital would be also higher than in the first quarter.
In the second scenario, the GDP would grow 6.27 per cent in the second quarter, owing to the recovery of the mining sector, with output at the same level as in 2016. The disbursement of state investment capital would be strong and the processing and manufacturing industries would grow higher than they did during the same period last year.
The economy expanded 5.57 per cent in the second quarter of 2016.
At the discussion, experts pointed out that Vietnam’s economy would be influenced significantly by global scenarios such as the recovery of world trade and economy, oil price fluctuations and development of the global finance market in the wake of the US Federal Reserve’s interest rate rise.
In the domestic market, business confidence of local enterprises is stable, experts said. More than 50 per cent of the firms expect their number of business contracts in the second quarter to be higher than in the first quarter.
Investment by private and foreign direct investment firms is also expected to rise in the second quarter owing to the government’s efforts to improve the business climate.
To meet the government’s GDP growth target of 6.7 per cent in 2017, NCEIF director Nguyen Thi Mai Thu suggested that the state work to further stabilise the macro economy to be able to create more confidence among investors and the business community. It will also be necessary to speed up |the disbursement of state investment capital and Government bonds, she added.
The government should also closely monitor the implementation of tasks raised in its Resolution 19/2016/NQ-CP on improving the business climate and the national competitive edge, and on the action programme on economic restructuring in the 2017-20 period.
Though exports are forecast to rise significantly in the next few months, expert Can Van Luc recommended that export firms be active in material resources.
According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), Vietnam’s GDP growth in the first quarter of 2017 was only 5.1 per cent, lower than the 6.72 per cent and 5.48 per cent growth rates during the same period in 2015 and 2016, respectively.
Ha Quang Tuyen, director of GSO’s national account department, said there are three reasons why the growth rate has been weaker.
First, the lingering effects of drought and saltwater intrusion from last year led to a sharp drop in rice production, which led to a contraction in the plant cultivation sub-sector.
Second, industrial growth slowed to 4.1 per cent against the 7.4 per cent recorded in the first three months of 2016, mainly the result of a manu-|facturing slowdown. Notably, electronic production shrank 1 per cent compared to the 11.3 per cent growth last year because of Samsung’s poor performance.
Third, the mining sector has been hit by the government’s attempts to balance growth and the exploitation of natural resources, as part of its drive to restructure the economy and renew the growth model.
