At Hai Phong container port (Photo: An Dang/VNA)

John Palu Lech, Investment Director of the Matthews Asia Investment Fund, called Vietnam a “star” of the frontier market, a less advanced economy in the developing world. In the first half of this year, foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam increased nearly 9% to more than 10 billion USD.

Economist Chua Han Teng of Singapore’s DBS bank forecast that Vietnam’s GDP growth will reach 7% this year, meeting the set target. He said the service sector will continue to grow strongly. According to him, Vietnam is emerging as a strong exporter of information and communication technology (ICT) and its market share is likely to grow further.

UOB revised its 2022 GDP growth forecast for Vietnam from 6.5% to 7%. Optimism is underpinned by Vietnam’s second-quarter 2022 real GDP growth which was higher than expected (an annualized rate of 7.7%, the highest rate in the past 11 years and far exceeding the previous estimate of 5.9%).