On December 29, the Vietnamese government announced that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2021 increase only by 2.58%, lower than the 2.91% rate of 2020 and also the lowest increase in the past decade.
The General Statistics Office (GSO) has just held a press conference on the socio-economic situation in 2021, according to which in the fourth quarter, the economy grew by 5.22%; negative 6.02% in the third quarter, 6.73% in the second quarter, 4.72% in the first quarter. For the whole year, Vietnam’s GDP increased by 2.58% only.
Tuoi Tre newspaper quoted Ms. Nguyen Thi Huong, General Director of the General Statistics Office, as saying that the reason for the drop was the COVID-19 epidemic, which seriously affected all areas of the economy, especially in the third quarter. Many key localities had to implement prolonged social distancing.
“The complicated development of the COVID-19 epidemic since the end of April has seriously affected commercial and service activities. The negative growth of a number of service industries accounting for a large proportion has reduced the overall growth rate of the service sector and the whole economy,” emphasized Ms. Huong.
Accordingly, the decline in the accommodation and foodservice industry was 20.81%, followed by the transportation and warehousing industry with a decrease of 5.02%, and the wholesale and retail industry with a decrease of 0.21%.
However, Vietnam’s statistics agency said that this is still “a great success” in both disease prevention and maintenance of production and business.
Also according to GSO, the consumer price index (CPI) in 2021 increased by 1.84% compared to the previous year, this is the lowest increase since 2016. The unemployment rate in 2021 of working-age workers is 3.22 %, of which the unemployment rate in urban areas is 4.42%, and in rural areas, it is 2.48%.
Last month, the World Bank (WB) estimated Vietnam’s GDP grew by 2 to 2.5% in 2021, about 4 percentage points lower than the world average.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
Source: https://www.voatiengviet.com/a/kinh-te-vietnam-cham-day-o-muc-2-58/6373990.html
