Many years of consistently high GDP growth have been due to a highlyattractive combination of political stability with sound pro-market executionfrom the government which has managed to slash poverty from 17% to less than 5%in a decade, the article wrote.
“Perhaps the best-known growth driver for Vietnam is its step-changein foreign direct investment (FDI), benefiting from an increase in exports dueto what is widely known as China Plus One,” it said.
The country continued to sign more than a dozen key trade agreementsduring the pandemic-triggered lockdown. These partnerships will make it easierfor companies to do business in Vietnam, positioning itself ever more as amanufacturing expert with ease of access to broad, international markets andbenefitting from 3,000 kilometres of coastline and the close connections toChina.
According to the writing, Vietnam is now moving more towardsmanufacturing higher-value products, more in electronics rather than textiles.
One of Vietnam’s most critical FDI sources is Samsung Electronics. Thetechnology giant employs tens of thousands of people in Vietnam and is thelargest investor in the country, with 50% of its handsets being produced there.
There is frequent hope that Vietnam will be upgraded from its current,off-benchmark, frontier market status to emerging market status by MSCI. TheVietnam stock market overall now meets the size and liquidity requirements tobe included, with a four-fold surge in retail participation during the past 2 -3 years, driven by digital account technology, the article added./.