Berlin (VNA) – The Deutsche Welle (DW) newswire onApril 17 ran a story praising Vietnam’s successes in fighting COVID-19 with allof its power while the global economy is facing depression due to the pandemic.
The article quoted areport by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as saying that the worldeconomic growth is forecast to drop by 3 percent this year. For the first timein 60 years, the Asian economy has been predicted to not expand. Meanwhile, theChinese Government has announced that its economy downsized 6.8 percent in thefirst quarter.
However, Vietnam has so far done a fairly good job in economic term. Though the figure in the first quarteris lower than the estimate, the growth still hit 3.82 percent, it said.
Talking with DW, Carl Thayer from Australia’s University of New South Wales, said it was a noteworthy achievement.
According to thearticle, Vietnam launched a strategy to contain SARS-CoV-2 from early. Therefore, datafrom the Johns Hopkins University showed that the total number of infectioncases has only reached 268 to date.
Despite social distancing measures, electronics and medicine-pharmaceuticals sectors still grewby 14 percent and 44 percent, respectively, in the first quarter, said the German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (AHK) inVietnam, adding that the Vietnamese Government is adopting differentmeasures to prevent economic slowdown.
It said like othercountries, Vietnam has also faced difficulties, especially in services, tourism andaviation. The tourism sector lost 3-4 billion USD in the first quarter.
Thayer also added that Vietnamcould succeed in maintaining the balance between protecting people’s health andeconomic benefits in the short term./.