The Japan Centre for Economic Research (JCER) has predicted that Vietnam will become an upper-middle-income country in 2023, and its GDP will surpass that of China’s Taiwan in 2035. (Photo: VNA)Tokyo (VNA) – The Japan Centre forEconomic Research (JCER) has predicted that Vietnam will become anupper-middle-income country in 2023, and its GDP will surpass that of China’s Taiwanin 2035.
The JCER recently released a medium-termforecast of Asian economies entitled “Asia in the coronavirus disaster: Whichcountries are emerging?”, which addresses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemicand looks at how Asian economies are faring compared with others around theworld.
In the standard scenario, JCER assumes that thepandemic is a transient event that will not affect economic structures over themedium term.
Under this assumption, only China, Vietnam, andTaiwan are on track to maintain positive year-on-year growth rates in2020.
Vietnam is seen sustaining a growth rate ofabout 6 percent in 2035 thanks to strong exports. This would propel theVietnamese economy past Taiwan’s in 2035 in terms of scale, and make it thesecond-largest economy in Southeast Asia after Indonesia.
Vietnam is poised to achieve upper-middle-incomestatus in 2023, with per capita income headed for 11,000 USD in 2035, accordingto JCER.
The report also included a severe scenario thatdescribes an outcome in which the coronavirus not only damages today’s economybut also affects urbanisation, trade openness, R&D spending, and a host ofother factors, undermining countries’ potential growth rates over the mediumterm.
In this scenario, the growth of the US, Vietnam,Singapore, and others in 2035 would be significantly lower than those under thestandard scenario, largely due to trade blockages. Vietnam’s economic scale atthat time is projected to still be smaller than that of Taiwan, JCER said./.
VNA
