UK paper hails Vietnam as economic success story

An investor looks at the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange’s stock price list on April 16. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi (VNA) – The UK's Daily Mail newspaper has published an article hailing Vietnam as one of the world’s economic success stories.

According to the paper, over the last three decades, the country has embraced the private sector, launched a stock market, benefited from large inward investment by major multinational corporations, and enjoyed 7-8 percent annual economic growth.

This success has led fund managers and some British investors to see Vietnam as an exciting investment opportunity. As a result, many Asian investment funds hold Vietnamese companies in their portfolios, and three specialist, high-risk trusts invest exclusively in listed and unlisted Vietnamese companies. Shares in these trusts are traded on the London Stock Exchange, the paper said.

The economy, like everything in the world, has been hampered by COVID-19 but is back on track as restrictions have been lifted. This year’s growth is projected to be stable at 1.5 percent, but next year Vietnam is projected to return to its pre-pandemic high growth, the article noted.

Its stock market has also risen by more than 30 percent this year, despite difficult economic conditions, showing the best performance across Asia. According to experts, the same may happen next year as Vietnam’s corporate profits recover significantly.

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

According to the author, the country's growing stock market is also expected to benefit from its being reclassified next year – from an embryonic 'frontiers' market to a fully-fledged emerging market. If this happens, it will attract the interest of big international investors, driving prices higher.

Investment house Waverton is a big fan. Brook Tellwright, a fund manager with Waverton based in Thailand, said Vietnam is currently one of its favourite stock markets across South East Asia – alongside Indonesia and the Philippines.

The paper quoted him as having said: “My hope is that we will see a strong economic recovery next year. This in turn will result in improved corporate earnings, which should help drive the stock market forward.”

Emily Fletcher, co-manager of investment trust BlackRock Frontiers, agreed. She said Vietnam's “explosive” economic growth in the run up to the pandemic created huge opportunities for businesses in Vietnam.

She said she believes this will continue as the country enjoys “substantial economic acceleration” after the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.

The Vietnamese economy is likely to gradually recover from the fourth quarter of 2021 and escape the minus growth seen in the third quarter thanks to the activeness of the business community and the Government’s efforts to remove obstacles facing enterprises, held economist Nguyen Bich Lam who is former Director General of the General Statistics Office.

He underlined that despite a reduction of 6.17 percent in GDP of Vietnam in the third quarter of this year due to COVID-19 impacts, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other financial institutions still remain optimistic about the Vietnamese economic prospects in the medium and long term.

Lam held that the optimism is based on the recovery of domestic demand, coupled with the strong consumption power of the nearly 100-million strong market, the country’s stable macroeconomic situation and the dynamism of the economy. Moreover, Vietnam is also a member of many large-scale multilateral and bilateral trade agreements, said the economist.

At the same time, the Government has rolled out measures to speed up the disbursement of public investment capital, thus improving the capacity of the economy and the infrastructure system.

Investors have shown confidence in the Vietnamese investment environment, which can be seen in a rise in foreign direct investment (FDI) influx into Vietnam despite a drop of 30 percent in FDI flows around the globe, said Lam.

Regarding the economic outlook in the fourth quarter, the official predicted an expansion of 2-3 percent which, he said, will result in 1.6-2.1 percent GDP growth for the whole year./.