HCMC – The Government at its recent meeting decided to keep the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth target at 6.5% for this year despite the steep economic slowdown in the first quarter of the year and challenges ahead.
Vietnam recorded 3.32% GDP growth in the first quarter, 2.28 percentage points lower than the Government’s expectations. In response, the Ministry of Planning and Investment has worked out two GDP growth scenarios for 2023.
In the first scenario, to ensure the country’s 2023 growth reaches 6%, GDP in the year’s second, third, and fourth quarters should expand by 6.7%, 6.5%, and 7.1%, respectively, as planned.
If Vietnam follows the first scenario, it would find it tough to achieve its economic growth targets in the 2021-2025 period, said Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung.
He added that achieving a five-year average growth target of 6.5% requires an average annual GDP growth rate of around 8% in 2024-2025, which is no easy task.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has approved the second scenario, striving for GDP growth of 6.5% in 2023.
The second scenario demands close coordination among authorities and government agencies in confronting economic headwinds in the rest of the year so that GDP growth in the third and fourth quarters could beat the National Assembly-approved targets by one and 0.8 percentage point, at 7.5% and 7.9%, respectively, Dung said.
