WB: Vietnam’s economy to grow 5.5 percent in 2014
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