Chief of the General Statistics Office Nguyen Bich Lam (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The revision of the size of Vietnam’s grossdomestic product (GDP) for 2011-2017 is in line with international practicesand serves as a foundation for the country's development path in the next 10years, an official has said.
Chief of the General Statistics Office Nguyen Bich Lam made the statement at aseminar in Hanoi on December 13 to announce the results of the revision of thesize of Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP) for 2011-2017.
“As Vietnam is developing a 10-year socio-economic development strategy for2021-30 and a five-year plan for 2021-25, it (the revision) will help theGovernment address the country’s future path in 5-10 years,” he told theseminar.
Lam announced the revision resulted in an averaged enlargement of 25.4 percent annuallyof Vietnam’s economy in 2010-2017 compared to previous data, an increase of 935trillion VND (40.5 billion USD) in GDP per year.
Of the estimates, 2011 witnessed the highest growth rate of 27.3 percent and2015 saw the lowest at 23.8 percent.
In 2017, the revised GDP size reached 6.29 quadrillion VND, while thepreviously announced figure was more than 5 quadrillion VND.
According to him, Vietnam’s revised per-capita GDP in 2010-2017 rose by anaverage of 25.6 percent per year compared to the announced figure,corresponding to an average increase of 10.3 million VND per person.
According to UN Resident Coordinator Kamal Malhotra, in the past decade, Vietnam’seconomy had achieved high growth rates and witnessed vast changes in economicstructure.
The influx of foreign investment and flourishing information technology hadcreated great potential for domestic enterprises, he said.
GDP revision was a common international practice, he said, adding that thepractice included re-basing, new surveys and administrative data, thus betterreflecting the scale of GDP.
The revision would assist the Government in the formulation of socio-economicdevelopment strategies and help businesses with their plans, he said.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)’s Country Economist JonathanPincus said Vietnam needed to constantly update and adjust its GDP, especiallythe use of statistics to suit the current period.
According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), besides per capita GDP, therevision will also lead to changes in other indicators relative to GDP grossnational income, government revenues to GDP, spending deficit to GDP and publicdebt to GDP.
A revised GDP also changes GDP structure, in which the proportion of industry,construction and service sectors increases while the farming sector’scontribution decreases.
According to the GSO, the re-assessment of Vietnam’s GDP will not affect thecountry’s growth targets and socio-economic development strategy as the growthrates over the years recorded minor changes.
GSO General Director Lam said the GDP re-assessment was based on methodologyrecommended by the UN’s statistics division.
The GSO said the review was in line with international practice and not achange in calculation method.
Across the world, most countries conduct regular GDP re-assessments dependingon available information, the scope and purpose of the review.
In Vietnam, GDP re-evaluation only takes into account defined economicactivities, without including the underground and illegal economy, and iscarried out periodically every 5-10 years./.
VNA
