The General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) on September 29 released the latest data, showing that the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) in the third quarter of this year was estimated to decrease by 6.17% compared to the same period last year.
According to GSO, this is the “deepest” decrease since Vietnam calculated and announced quarterly GDP up to now.
The statement of this statistical agency said that the industry and construction sector decreased by 5.02% and the service sector decreased by 9.28%. Meanwhile, the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector increased by 1.04%.
According to GSO, GDP in the first nine months of 2021 only increased by 1.42% over the same period last year due to “the COVID-19 epidemic seriously affected all sectors of the economy, many key economic localities had to prolonged social way to prevent epidemics.”
The General Statistics Office wrote that the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector “plays the role of a pedestal of the economy during the pandemic” with high rice productivity, stable growth of livestock, and a number of export turnovers. Agricultural products in the first nine months of 2021 were quite good compared to the same period last year.
The GSO also said that the COVID-19 epidemic was “complicated, seriously affecting trade and service activities” and that “negative growth in the first nine months of 2021 of a number of service industries accounted for a large proportion of the reduce the overall growth of the service sector and the economy as a whole.”
Many localities in the South, especially Ho Chi Minh City, where the COVID-19 epidemic broke out strongly recently, had to take social distancing measures to prevent the infection, including the temporary suspension of public transport service establishments.
The latest outbreak of the disease since April this year in Vietnam has brought the total number of COVID-19 infections to at least 779 thousand cases and more than 19 thousand deaths, according to Vietnam’s Ministry of Health.
Thoibao.de (Translated)
