Vietnam attends Seoul workshop on politics development in Asia

Foreign newspapers have highlighted Vietnam’s impressive success after the World Bank (WB) forecast that its economy will lead Asia with a growth rate of 7.2% this year, up from the previous forecast of 5.3% in April.

Meanwhile, growth in Asia-Pacific was predicted at 3.2%.

According to WB experts, Vietnam’s success is the result of effective COVID-19 prevention measures, demographical advantages and a privileged position in the regional and global economic structure.

Japan’s Nikkei Asia said Vietnam’s GDP in the third quarter expanded by 13.67% year-on-year as exports to the US soared and personal consumption recovered. However, it also warned of falling exports to key markets and continued disruption of global supply chain as risks. Moreover, Vietnam also began producing semiconductor chips at home.

Reuters reported that FPT Semiconductor, a unit of Vietnam's leading tech company FPT, launched its first line of semiconductor chips used for Internet-of-Things in medical devices. The company aims to supply 25 million chips globally by 2023.

Lexology also described Vietnam as an ideal destination to carry out semiconductor manufacturing. The Vietnamese semiconductor market is expected to grow by 6.52% during 2021 – 2025 as more foreign enterprises shifted production to Vietnam due to its strategic location and advantages in shipping, competitive labour and production costs. Vietnam can now benefit from 13 free trade agreements the country is a signatory to.

In tourism, The Star wrote that in the first nine months of this year, foreign tourist arrivals in Vietnam neared 1.87 million, marking a 16.4-fold rise from the same period last year.

Data from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism showed that from January-September, the total number of domestic visitors hit around 87 million, which underpinned the sector’s growth.