Vietnam slashes 2020 economic growth target to 4.5% on virus pressure

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung told legislators at the Standing Committee of the National Assembly’s meeting on Friday morning that it was necessary to cut the socio-economic target.

The pandemic has left heavy impacts on the global and Vietnam’s economies. Therefore, the country will have to review its major socio-economic development targets that had been set earlier in order to fall in line with the current global context, Minister Dung suggested.

In better scenarios, when the world situation is favorable, the epidemic is well controlled, the international market recovers, Vietnam’s GDP growth target should be 5.4%, in order to ensure the goal of 5-year average GDP growth of 6.5%.

The minister presented the government’s two economic growth scenarios for the year.

In a brighter scenario, the country successfully curbs the disease in Mid-April and Vietnam’s major trade and investment partners manage to recover in the quarter. The country’s economic growth would be projected to grow by between 4.4% and 5.2%.

In the worst scenario, the country controlled the virus in Mid-April while its major trade and investment partners are unable to rebound until the fourth quarter of this year. In this situation, Vietnam’s GDP is projected to grow between 3.6% and 4.4%, much lower than the initial target of 6.8%.

Based on the possible factors, the government proposed to lower the growth target to 4.5% for 2020.

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