Recently, on April 21, 2021, the Vietnam Institute for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) under the VNU University of Economics and Business announced the Macroeconomic Report for the first quarter of 2021.
This report is part of the quarterly Macroeconomic Report Series produced by VEPR with the support of the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung (KAS).
The report covers the following main topics:
- The
global economy has shown signs of recovery with confidence coming from the Covid-19
vaccine, but still contains many uncertainties and lack of uniformity across
countries and economic sectors.
- Oil
prices surged in the first quarter of 2021 thanks to OPEC+'s efforts to cut
output and the bright outlook of the global economy. However, the upward
momentum is likely to be reversed in the next quarter due to the unstable
epidemic situation in Europe and OPEC+'s decision to raise oil production
during May-July.
- China's
economy has recovered to pre-pandemic levels. In 2021, the Chinese government
advocates continuing to maintain a flexible monetary policy and fiscal stimulus
packages.
- Along
with effective supportive policies and strong promotion of vaccination against Covid-19
epidemic, the US economy in 2021 is expected to recover faster than the October
forecast.
- The
economic recovery of the EU region, especially the countries that depend on
tourism, will continue to face many difficulties in 2021 due to the outbreak of
the disease again due to the appearance of a new variant of SARS- Covid-2, plus
the slow progress of vaccination.
- Vietnam's
economy in the first quarter of 2021 kept a growth rate of 4.48% (yoy), equal
to the growth rate of the fourth quarter of 2020 and higher than the growth
rate of the same period in 2020 (3.82% (yoy)).
- In the
first quarter of 2021, the whole country had 29.3 thousand newly registered
enterprises with a total registered capital of 447.8 trillion dong and a total
number of registered employees of 245.6 thousand employees, down 1 .4% in the
number of enterprises, up 27.5% in registered capital and 0.8% in the number of
employees over the same period in 2020.
- Average
CPI in the first quarter of 2021 increased by 0.29% (yoy), the lowest increase
in the past 20 years. Inflation (yoy) is expected to increase rapidly starting
from April 2021.
- The
central rate tended to increase slightly throughout Q1/2021, ending the quarter
at 23,244 VND/USD. The exchange rate at commercial banks decreased in January
and increased slightly since February, ending at 23,170 VND/USD.
- The
domestic gold price is constantly at a high difference compared to the world
gold price because the supply becomes scarce after the government tightens
border management to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic, while the local people’s
need of holding gold is still increasing.
- It is
forecasted that Vietnam's economic growth in 2021 can reach 6.0-6.3%.
Monetary
policy should pay attention to the balance between supporting economic growth
and macro stability, because in 2021 there may be inflation risks.
The report was
published on April 20, 2021. The economic and market data in the report was
updated to April 15, 2021. We are pleased to introduce to you!
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