Commenting on the economic situation of Vietnam, Maslov noted Vietnam's impressive success in 2020 with growth of 2.91 percent. Particularly,Vietnam is a model of effective response to COVID-19, he added.
He underlined that despite the country’s not very largeeconomic scale, Vietnam has posted consecutive high growth in recent years (6.81 percent in 2017, 7.08 percent in 2018, and 7.02 percent in 2019).Even in 2020 amid great challenges, growth was seen in the production of majorexport products as well as major sectors.
Maslov noted that the most important development was seen in external trade with a record trade surplus of 19.1 billion USD,continuing the trend of trade surplus for five years in a row.
The Russian expert held that the signing of free trade agreements (FTA),including the EU-Vietnam FTA (EVFTA) has brought about positive outcomes, citing that last year, Vietnam’s exports to the EU hit 43.8 billion USD.
He held that the success lesson of Vietnam is rooted in its “Doi Moi” policy that was launched in the 1980s, which has resulted in asharp fall in the ratio of poverty and a considerable rise in people’s lifeexpectancy to 75.5.
The Vietnamese economy is opening broader to the worldthrough years, he noted, adding that with dynamic external trade, effectivemonetary policies and active fiscal policies in combination with expanding domestic consumption, the Vietnamese Government has succeeded in macro-economicmanagement.
He lauded the Vietnamese Government’s serious attention tosocial projects, including a scheme to reduce unemployment as well asprogrammes benefiting people in border, remote and ethnic-minority-inhabitedareas.
He asserted that the COVID-19 prevention and control campaign ofVietnam was effective in 2020 and has been promoted this year. Besides dealing with new waves of outbreaks, the Vietnamese Government has activelysped up vaccine research and sought outside vaccine sources,including Sputnik-V from Russia.
The expert said though the new wave of COVID-19outbreaks will put negative impacts on society, he believes that Vietnam will show flexibleresponse, and maintain the growth trend in 2021./.