Bright spots seen in VN's international economic integration

Bright spots seen in VN's international economic integration

In recent years, Viet Nam’s international economic integration process has reached a new level, making significant contributions to promoting socio-economic development and improving national competitiveness.

Despite the complicated and unpredictable changes in the regional and world economic situation, Viet Nam has still persisted in implementing the policy of comprehensive international economic integration and has considered international economic integration and trade liberalization as an objective indispensable trend.

Five highlights in Viet Nam’s comprehensive international economic integration

With the policy of “proactive and active international integration”, Viet Nam has attained positive results in its comprehensive international economic integration over recent years, with five highlights as follows:

Firstly, international economic integration has contributed to strengthening national synergy. The Vietnamese economy has been gradually restructured in association with the renovation of growth model, while the economic infrastructure system has been enhanced, together with the increasingly improved quality of human resources in service of socio-economic development.

It is forecasted that Viet Nam’s economic size in 2019 will reach VND5.5 quadrillion (US$240.5 billion), 1.3 times higher than 2015. Currently, Viet Nam ranks 44th in the world by nominal GDP and 34th by purchasing power parity (PPP).

Secondly, international economic integration has had a strong impact on growth, contributing to facilitating socio-economic development. Thanks to the acceleration of international economic integration, Viet Nam’s average GDP per capita increased from US$2,109 (in 2015) to US$2,587 (in 2018), about US$7,650 by PPP.

Thirdly, international economic integration has strongly boosted Viet Nam’s international trade activities, while helping to increase import-export revenues, expand the market and diversify export commodities.

Viet Nam has become a part of the global economy with its total export and import turnover hitting nearly US$480 billion in 2018, nearly doubling the GDP. From a position of frequent trade deficit, Viet Nam has gradually shifted to trade surplus. At present, the country has established trade ties with more than 200 countries and territories.

Fourthly, extensive international economic integration has contributed to making Viet Nam become an important “link” in the network of economic links with the world’s leading economies.

Fifthly, Viet Nam’s foreign direct investment (FDI) attraction has achieved many amazing results. As assessed by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Viet Nam is among the 12 most successful countries in attracting FDI.

Currently, there are nearly 26,000 FDI enterprises operating in Viet Nam with a committed capital of over US$330 billion from nearly 130 countries and partners. The FDI inflows into the country accounts for 25% of the total social investment.

Building on the achieved results in the process of international economic integration, Viet Nam continues to proactively implement international economic integration in a more comprehensive, extensive, innovative and effective manner.

 By Vien Nhu