HANOI, March 31 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's GDP is expected to grow by 4.9 percent this year, about 1.6 percentage points lower than the previous projection, according to a latest World Bank report.
Despite favorable prospects for the Vietnamese economy in the medium term, the country's GDP growth will be affected negatively by the global COVID-19 pandemic, the World Bank said in a report titled "East Asia and Pacific in the Time of COVID-19," published on Monday.
In the short term, the COVID-19 outbreak could create stronger adverse impacts on Vietnam's economy, especially manufacturing and tourism sectors which are highly dependent on the global economy, the report noted.
Vietnam is estimated to gain a GDP growth of 3.82 percent in the first quarter of this year, the lowest in the 2011-2020 period, the country's General Statistics Office announced last Friday.
Vietnam recorded a GDP growth of 7.02 percent in 2019, up from the annualized target of 6.6-6.8 percent, and has set a target of a GDP growth of around 6.8 percent this year, according to the office.
