Moody's change of outlook for Vietnam by two places unprecedented: official

Hanoi (VNA) – Moody's Investors Service (Moody's) maintaining the Government of Vietnam's long-term issuer and senior unsecured ratings at Ba3 and changing the outlook to “positive” from “negative” is unprecedented, an official has said.

Moody’s raised the credit rating for Vietnam to Ba3 in August 2018, and this is the first time it has changed the outlook for the country by two places, to “positive”, since the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.

It explained that this decision is the recognition of Vietnam’s impressive economic development that has outpaced other countries with similar credit ratings amid extremely complex developments of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world.

It noted that Vietnam’s effective economic policies and disease containment solutions have supported domestic economic activities and foreign trade to recover quickly and helped with budget collection.

The medium-term growth prospects were also assessed as highly promising thanks to improvements in fiscal and debt metrics.

Truong Hung Long, Director of the Finance Ministry’s Department of Debt Management and External Finance, said the move by Moody’s reflects its recognition of Vietnam’s solid macro-economic foundation, the Government’s remarkable success in controlling the pandemic and maintaining positive growth, as well as the enhanced stature thanks to the capacity of integrating into Asian supply chains.

Moody’s decision is an important recognition of the outcomes of the effective macro policies and the engagement of the entire political system in Vietnam in successfully containing the pandemic and quickly recovering the economy, thus helping the country outpace others with similar ratings in the region and the world, he noted.

It is also a result of the patience and proactiveness of Government agencies, including the Ministry of Finance, in sharing updated macro-economic information with Moody’s for a long time, Long added./.