After growing 3.32 per cent in the first quarter of 2023, the Vietnamese economy bounced back to 4.14 per cent in the second quarter. In the first half of the year, it increased 3.72 per cent, lower than the on-year growth rate of 6.42 per cent in the same period last year.

“The economy has bounced back step by step thanks to the government’s efforts in helping businesses out of difficulties, and enterprises’ growing confidence in the domestic business and the investment climate increasingly improved,” said the General Statistics Office (GSO) last week.

However, with just 43.72 per cent growth rate for the first half of 2023, bigger efforts must be made to reach the growth target of 6.5 per cent set by the National Assembly this year.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) is now updating its new growth scenarios for the second half of 2023, which will be submitted to the government soon. In its latest outlook, the MPI looks at two different scenarios.

In the first scenario, the economy will grow 6 per cent for the whole year. In the second, it will be 6.5 per cent, which will only happen provided there are no bigger challenges and more new solutions are applied to continue lifting enterprises and people out of difficulties.

The Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research over a week ago issued three growth scenarios for Vietnam this year, forecasting 5.5 per cent in the low scenario, 6 per cent for the medium scenario, and 6.5 per cent for the high scenario.

Some key economic sectors witnessed a rise in performance in the first six months of this year.

State-owned Vietnam National Coal and Mineral Industries Group reported last week that its total revenue is estimated to be over VND87 trillion ($3.62 billion) – up 7 per cent on-year. In which the coal revenue reached $2.35 billion, up 11.2 per cent on-year, and revenue from some business activities sat at $58.3 million, up 4.5 per cent on-year.

In another case, Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) last week reported that its six-month revenue from electricity sale is to reach over $9.34 billion, up 3.66 per cent on-year.

In the first half of 2023, EVN’s gross industrial output is estimated to have hit $8.08 billion, up 1.77 per cent. Electricity produced and purchased is estimated to be over 131 billion kWh, up 1.63 per cent.

According to the GSO, in the first six months, the economy’s production and distribution of electricity increased 1.79 per cent as compared to the 0.8 per cent expansion on-year in the first five months.

However, difficulties have hit PetroVietnam. The group last week reported that its total six-month revenue is estimated to be $14.52 billion, down 8 per cent on-year.

PetroVietnam’s production of key products decreased on-year, such as crude oil at 5.31 million tonnes, down 2 per cent; and nitrate at 874,700 tonnes, down 6 per cent. Moreover, PetroVietnam’s consumption of several products also went down, such as liquefied petroleum gas at 3 per cent, crude oil also at 3 per cent, and condensate down by 25 per cent.

Nevertheless, the group’s six-month production of electricity hit 8.36 million kWh, up 17 per cent on-year, and production of assorted petrol and petrol touched 3.54 million tonnes, up 5 per cent compared to the same period last year.

According to the GSO, in the first half of this year, enterprise performance in the economy difficult. Vietnam saw more than 75,900 newly established businesses registered at $29.48 billion, using nearly 509,900 workers, down 0.5, 19.8, and 1 per cent respectively, compared to the corresponding period last year.

The GSO last week also released the results of its Q2 survey on manufacturers. A total of 43.3 per cent of respondents said their third-quarter performance improved in Q2. However, it also stated that in the first six months of this year, there were 60,200 businesses halting operations and 31,000 enterprises awaiting disbandment.