WB revises down Vietnam’s 2024 GDP growth forecast to 5.5%

Vietnam’s GDP growth could reach 5.5% in 2024 and 6% in 2025, the World Bank said in its January 2024 edition of the “Global Economic Prospects” report.

Per the latest projections, the WB revised down Vietnam’s economic growth in 2024 by 0.7 percentage points and 2025 by 0.5 percentage points versus the June 2023 edition of the report.

Vietnam’s latest figure for 2024 is among the highest in the East Asia and Pacific region with 23 economies, lower than Cambodia with 5.8%, Mongolia with 6.2%, Palau with 12.4%, and the Philippines with 5.8%.

For 2025, Vietnam’s figure is only lower than Cambodia with 6.1%, Mongolia with 6.4%, and Palau with 11.9%.

Vietnam’s GDP grew 5.05% year-on-year to $430 billion in 2023, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO). The figure is higher than 2.91% in 2020 and 2.58% in 2021, the two peak years of the Covid-19 pandemic; but lower than 8.02% in 2022, the post-pandemic period, and 7.02% in 2019, the pre-pandemic period.

Commenting on the growth, the WB said: “Slower manufacturing growth in China would depress regional processing trade, particularly in economies with large integrated export sectors such as Malaysia and Vietnam.”

Global growth is projected to slow for the third year in a row from 2.6% last year to 2.4% in 2024, per the report. “Developing economies are projected to grow just 3.9%, more than one percentage point below the average of the previous decade. After a disappointing performance last year, low-income countries should grow 5.5%, weaker than previously expected,” it noted

“To tackle climate change and achieve other key global development goals by 2030, developing countries will need to deliver a formidable increase in investment, about $2.4 trillion per year,” the bank highlighted.

“Investment booms have the potential to transform developing economies and help them speed up the energy transition and achieve a wide variety of development objectives,” said Ayhan Kose, the WB’s deputy chief economist and director of the Prospects Group.