Viet Nam would remain the only one with positive growth among five major economies in ASEAN, and its economic growth would rebound to 6.7% in 2021, according to the International Monetary Fund’s October 2020 World Economic Outlook (WEO) Update. 

Viet Nam is the unique country among major ASEAN economies posting
positive economic growth (1.81%) in the first half of 2020. 

The IMF has revised down its forecast for Viet Nam’s GDP growth to 1.6% in 2020 from a previous estimate of 2.7% in June.

Viet Nam, however, remains the only country among major economies in ASEAN-5 (Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Viet Nam) expected to deliver positive growth this year.

Overall, ASEAN-5 economies are expected to contract by 3.4% in 2020, before expanding 6.2% in 2021.

The IMF forecasted that Viet Nam’s GDP in 2020 may exceed US$340 billion, higher than Singapore (US$337 billion and the Philippines (US$367 billion).

Meanwhile, the nation’s GDP per capita could increase from US$3,416 in 2019 to US$3,500 at the end of this year. 

Viet Nam’s GDP increased 2.12% during the first nine months of 2020, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO). 

Although the slowest growth in the past decade, it has to be considered a success given the heavy toll the COVID-19 pandemic has taken on the global economy.

Speaking at the Cabinet meeting in early October, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc called for more efforts to achieve GDP growth rate of 2.5-3% this year as V-shaped recovery is becoming clearer over the past months.

According to tradingeconomics.com, in the first half of 2020, Viet Nam was the unique country among major economies in ASEAN posting positive economic growth (1.81%) while other nations announced negative economic growths including Malaysia (-16.5%), Singapore (-13.3%), Thailand (-9.7%), Indonesia (-4.19%) and the Philippines (-15.2%).