Vietnam quarterly growth hits 2-year high on exports, investment

Vietnam reported its strongest economic growth in two years in the quarter to the end of September, as strong exports and industrial production and rising foreign investment offset the effects last month of Asia’s strongest typhoon so far this year.

Gross domestic product grew 7.4 per cent year-on-year in the third quarter, surpassing the second quarter’s revised 7.09 per cent expansion, the government’s General Statistics Office said in a report.

Vietnam is a regional manufacturing hub for multinational corporations including Samsung Electronics and Apple suppliers Foxconn and Luxshare, and has drawn a steady influx of foreign investment.

“The world economy is stabilising as global trade in goods improves, inflationary pressures ease, financial conditions continue to loosen and labour supply increases,” the statistics office said.

Data for September showed that exports rose 10.7 per cent from a year earlier while industrial production was up 10.8 per cent, it said.

Foreign investment inflows in the first nine months of this year rose 8.9 per cent from a year earlier to US$17.3 billion.