Vietnam's Q2 economic growth remains strong
Friday, June 28, 2019, 14:11 GMT+7
Vietnam’s economic growth remained strong in the second quarter, backed by robust exports and foreign investment.
Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 6.71% in the second quarter this year, slowing down from a revised expansion of 6.82% in the first quarter, the General Statistics Office (GSO) said on Friday.
The processing and manufacturing industry grew 9.14% during April-June from a year earlier, while the services sector rose 6.85% and the agricultural sector grew 2.19%, the GSO said in a statement.
Exports in the first half of the year rose 7.3% from a year earlier to $122.72 billion, while foreign direct investment inflows into the country grew 8% to $9.1 billion in the period.
Vietnam’s exports to the United States rose 29% to $22.72 billion in the first five months of this year from a year earlier, according to Vietnamese government’s customs data.
The GSO said Vietnam’s economic growth, however, might be dragged down by a slowdown in public investment and an African swine fever outbreak that has hit farms in almost all of the country’s 63 provinces.
Vietnam targets economic growth of between 6.6% and 6.8% this year.
“We expect growth to remain strong, thanks in large part to a booming export sector,” Capital Economics said in a note on Friday, adding that it raised its forecast on Vietnam’s GDP growth for this year to 7.0% from 6.5%.
