 Vietnam is among few countries having export turnover exceed GDP. |
Anjaiah, who is a senior journalist at the Jakarta Post, acknowledged Vietnam’s economic accomplishments, its ASEAN chairmanship in 2020, and its COVID-19 containment under a progressive and reformist government led by the Communist Party of Vietnam.
Vietnam’s socialist-oriented market economy is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, said Anjaiah, adding that Vietnam’s GDP growth is expected to bounce back to 7% this year because Vietnam has recently signed the European Union-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA), the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement and the United Kingdom-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (UKVFTA). He noted that Vietnam’s poverty rate fell from 28.9% in 2002 to 1.9% in 2018 and its unemployment rate fell to 2% in 2019.
A survey by AC Nielsen showed that Vietnam’s per capita income and middle class have grown after decades of market-oriented economic reforms and thanks to stable governance. Vietnam was the second most optimistic country in the world in 2020, according to Nielsen.
