He is director of Vietnam and Asean Research Institute under the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, the Russian Academy of Science.
In an interview in Sputnik news agency, Professor Mazyrin said that Vietnam is amid a stable economic development phase with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth reaching 6.7 percent, the highest rate in nearly ten years after the global economic crisis.
Statistics show that Vietnam’s GDP nears $220 billion and GDP at Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) reaches nealy $600 billion which is moving quickly to $1,000. That is a spectacular unbelievable growth rate, he commented.
According to him, one of important economic achievements is improved investment and trading environment showed through investment capital in 2017 hitting $33 billion, up 82.8 percent over 2016.
Vietnam has more and more lured large foreign invested projects and the foreign trade industry continued growing at an unprecedented rate.
Data from the General Department of Vietnam Customs show that by the end of 2017, Vietnam’s export import turnover will reach $410 billion and trade surplus will approximate $3 billion. The country has taken six years to increase the turnover from $30 to $100 billion and only two years to hit the landmark of $400 billion.
The professor emphasized that Vietnam has focused on implementing macroeconomic stabilization and 2017 is the first time for the last many years the country obtained all 13 socio-economic norms. These achievements have increased Vietnam’s rank in developed economies.
Right policy
Mr. Mazyrin said that Vietnam gets the above economic achievements thanks to the country’s right leadership.
He calculated that Vietnam’s economic cycle usually lasts 9-11 years. So the growth pace will remain in 2-3 years before recession, an unavoidable phase in capitalist production.
Talking about challenges, he said economists including Vietnamese pointed out that Vietnam could not maintain in a long term current advantages such as low cost and young labor force. So the country need to change into creative economic models, raise labor productivity and modernize agriculture.
In the future, the country will face other serious problems. Specifically, western nations and the US will speed up automation and use of robot technologies in production. They will no longer be in the need of building production establishments in Southeast Asia.
However, these challenges are forecast in the future. Relevant programs have been prepared to cope with them. At present, Vietnam’s economy continued growing stably. The World Bank and other organs have given optimistic forecasts on the country's development in the next year.
