On December 21, the World Bank's "Review" report on Vietnam's economic situation forecast that Vietnam would grow by nearly 3% in 2020 while the world economy is expected to shrink by at least 4%. despite facing the biggest global shock in decades.

The report attributes Vietnam to the above results due to the resilience of both the domestic economic sector and the external economy. Not only containing the pandemic with early, drastic and creative measures, the Government also used fiscal and monetary policies to remove difficulties for the private sector and promote recovery.

The external economic sector—Vietnam's main driver of economic growth over the past decade—has performed very well since the Covid-19 crisis began. Vietnam is expected to post its largest ever surplus in merchandise exports, while its foreign exchange reserves increase. The continued inflow of foreign investment into Vietnam, combined with a sharp increase in commodity exports, made up for the loss of foreign currency revenue due to the decline in tourism activities and the shrinking source of remittances. The report said that foreign investors are still investing and/or are shifting production activities to Vietnam due to the country's good management of the pandemic.

In the coming time, Vietnam's outlook is said to be positive when the economy is forecasted to grow at about 6.8% in 2021 and will stabilize around 6.5% in the following years. This forecast is based on the assumption that the Covid-19 crisis will be gradually brought under control, when the Covid-19 vaccine proves to be effective. Even so, the scale and duration of the pandemic as well as its economic impacts are difficult to predict, and therefore a lower growth scenario cannot be ignored.