Vietnam strives to achieve double-digit economic growth in 2025

Recently, the Prime Minister of Vietnam instructed the Ministry of Planning and Investment to take the lead and coordinate relevant departments to review the GDP growth for the whole year of 2025, and strive to achieve double-digit growth.

According to the General Statistics Office of the Ministry of Planning and Investment of Vietnam, the GDP scale of Vietnam is expected to reach 11511.9 trillion VND in 2024, about 476.3 billion US dollars; the per capita GDP is expected to reach 114 million VND, about 4,700 US dollars.

Data show that in 2024, the main driving force for Vietnam’s GDP growth came from industrial production and services. Among them, the industry and construction industry grew by 8.24%, the service industry grew by 7.38%, and the agriculture, forestry and fishery sectors grew by 3.27%.

In terms of economic structure, in Vietnam’s GDP in 2024, agriculture, forestry and fishery accounted for 11.86%, industry and construction accounted for 37.64%, the service industry accounted for 42.36%, and product taxes minus product subsidies accounted for 8.14%.

In terms of consumption and imports and exports, final consumption expenditure in 2024 will increase by 6.57% year-on-year, asset accumulation will increase by 7.20%, exports of goods and services will increase by 15.45%, and imports of goods and services will increase by 16.10%.

Nguyen Chi Dung, Minister of Planning and Investment of Vietnam, said that in the next 20 years, Vietnam must maintain high growth and strive to reach more than 10%. The two growth poles such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, as well as important power areas such as the Red River Delta and the southeast region, must also achieve double-digit growth to establish the leading role of the whole country.

Although there is still a lot of resource potential in the economy, these resources have not been effectively developed and utilized, especially private resources. Therefore, the Minister of Planning and Investment of Vietnam suggested that domestic enterprises, especially large private economic groups, should be vigorously developed; bottlenecks and obstacles in projects should be solved in a timely manner, and backlogs, stagnation and waste resources should be quickly released, so as to make significant contributions to growth, production, operation, national fiscal revenue and job creation.

The four main factors affecting Vietnam’s economy in 2025 include: exchange rate, foreign trade, geopolitical tensions, and internal economic problems.

Specifically, exchange rates and foreign trade may be negatively affected by fluctuations in the US dollar and the US economic and foreign policies, especially if the US may tighten monetary policy and impose high import tariffs on excess trade countries exporting to the country. Regarding geopolitics, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the situation in the Middle East will continue to bring unpredictable fluctuations. Vietnam’s economy has a high degree of openness and is part of the global fluctuations. Therefore, policies must be developed around these changes, give full play to the advantages of integration into the global economy, and reduce risks. Vietnam is currently in the stage of economic restructuring to lay the foundation for entering a new stage of development. The government needs to take effective measures to support small and medium-sized enterprises, thereby reducing the number of enterprises exiting the market.

According to the report of the Ministry of Planning and Investment of Vietnam, the economic outlook for 2025 is positive, and many international organizations have raised their forecasts for Vietnam’s economic growth. At the end of last year, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) raised its GDP growth forecast for Vietnam from the previous 6.2% to 6.6%, making it the highest GDP growth level in Southeast Asia.

Standard Chartered Bank recently updated its positive forecast for Vietnam’s economic outlook in 2025, with a growth rate of 6.7%. In the global economic ranking, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts that Vietnam’s GDP will reach US$506 billion in 2025.

In Communiqué No. 140/CD-TTg on December 27, 2024 on striving for double-digit economic growth in 2025, the Prime Minister of Vietnam asked all departments, industries and localities to resolutely and effectively implement the three strategic breakthroughs, six key tasks and 12 major solutions that have been proposed. Among them, continue to update and further promote traditional growth drivers, including investment, consumption, and export breakthroughs, and vigorously promote new growth drivers.

It is worth noting that the Prime Minister of Vietnam asked to focus on promoting the arrival of public investment funds from the beginning of the year, take public investment as the lead, activate social investment, and promote public-private cooperation; accelerate the implementation of strategic transportation infrastructure projects, and strive to exceed the goal of 3,000 kilometers of expressways by the end of 2025 and 5,000 kilometers of expressways by the end of 2030.

This year is the second year to put growth promotion before stabilizing the macroeconomy, and propose measures to achieve priority growth targets. Dr. Nguyen Duc Kiem, head of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Group, said that in the overall goals for 2025, the National Assembly and the Government have determined new ways to prioritize growth and maintain macroeconomic stability.

The Vietnamese economy is returning to a high-speed growth track, bringing many investment conveniences and business opportunities to enterprises. Therefore, streamlining institutions and institutional reforms to remove obstacles and release development resources must be implemented smoothly to ensure that they do not interfere with and affect the continuity of social and economic activities.

2025 is the “closing year” of Vietnam’s five-year economic and social development plan from 2021 to 2025, and it is also a year of accelerated breakthroughs, laying the foundation and premise for the implementation of the economic and social development plan for the 2026-2030 period.