The Vietnamese economy is expected to grow at a moderate rate of around 5.5 percent this year, according to the East Asia Pacific Economic Update report released by the World Bank (WB) at a press conference in Hanoi on April 7.
Addressing the event, Axel van Trotsenburg, WB East Asia and Pacific Regional Vice President, said East Asia and the Pacific has served as the world’s main growth engine since the global financial crisis.
He added that stronger global growth this year will help the region expand at a relatively steady pace while adjusting to tighter global financial conditions.
In its report, the WB forecasts that developing countries in the East Asia and Pacific region will see stable economic growth this year, thanks to a recovery in high-income economies and the market’s modest response to the Federal Reserve’s tapering of its quantitative easing.
The report said developing East Asia will grow by 7.1 percent this year, largely unchanged from 2013, adding that with this growth, it will remain the fastest growing region in the world, despite a slowdown from the average growth rate of 8.0 percent from 2009 to 2013.
Bert Hofman, Chief Economist of the WB’s East Asia and Pacific Region, said that over the longer term, to keep growth high, developing East Asia should redouble efforts to pursue structural reforms to increase their underlying growth potential and enhance market confidence.
According to the report, the regional countries could also benefit from structural reforms, such as facilitating international trade and promoting foreign direct investment, especially in the services sector. In this context, the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015 could boost intra-regional investment and exports and provide an important source of growth.-VNA
