Vietnam ranked 35th in the world’s top 40 countries with the largest gross domestic product (GDP) last year, an encouraging achievement in the Southeast Asian nation’s economic recovery and development, but more should be done to foster stronger growth and higher competitiveness for the national economy, experts have said.

As recently reported by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the country gained a GDP value of about US$435 billion in 2023, placing 35th in the list of 40 countries with the highest GDP scales in the world.

The country has ranked among 20 leading countries in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI) and also in the top 20 nations with the highest import-export turnovers. 

The ministry reported Vietnam’s GDP per capita at VND101.9 million, or about $4,284.5, in 2023.

Such good performance has made Vietnam a bright spot in economic recovery in the world and has been highly valued by the international community, Acting State President Vo Thi Anh Xuan said at a conference in south-central Binh Dinh Province last week.

“With high economic openness, reaching nearly 200 percent of its GDP scale, Vietnam is a dynamic economy in ASEAN,” Xuan stated.

The fact that Vietnam, from a less economically developed country, has achieved such a GDP size after 40 years of reformation is a really significant achievement, said Dr. Nguyen Quoc Viet, deputy director at the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research.

Such performance partly resulted from the very high openness of the Vietnamese economy combined with its total import-export turnover nearly double its GDP, Dr. Viet said.

The success in attracting FDI has greatly contributed to boosting the economy’s overall expansion and elevating people’s incomes.

Dr. Le Dang Doanh, former director of the Central Institute for Economic Management, also considered Vietnam’s 35th position in terms of GDP size an encouraging sign, adding that the country’s 2023 GDP scale would have been even larger if it had been calculated by the purchasing power parity (PPP) method.

“But we should not be complacent since Vietnam’s GDP growth rate is currently lower than those of other countries and territories such as South Korea, Thailand, and Taiwan,” Dr. Doanh advised. 

He also pointed out that both GDP per capita and labor productivity in Vietnam are still lower than those of some other countries in the region, not to mention other economies in the world.

However, he underscored that despite the country's strengths, there is room for improvement to attain even higher growth rates in the future.

Dr. Viet advised that while Vietnam benefits from a young workforce and a large market of 100 million people, the focus should be on enhancing human resource quality and productivity to improve competitiveness and efficiency.

This, he suggested, would facilitate deeper integration of businesses into global value chains.

The country’s GDP growth in the first quarter of this year has been estimated at 5.66 percent over the same period last year, thanks to the recovery in many sectors, including tourism, manufacturing, and processing, according to the data from the General Statistics Office.

The GDP growth target for 2024 has been set at 6-6.5 percent, as per a resolution passed by the National Assembly in early November last year.

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