Weekly News Bulletin - No. 02, October 2023

The southern province of Dong Nai drew over 120 foreign-invested projects worth nearly 940 million USD in the first nine months of this year, surpassing the yearly plan by around 34%, said the Dong Nai Industrial Zones Authority (DIZA) on October 3.

DIZA head Nguyen Tri Phuong noted that many Chinese firms have partially relocated their investments to Vietnam. During the period, Dong Nai licensed roughly 50 new FDI projects, including 17 from China with a total investment of approximately 150 million USD. Most of them rent spaces for operations in apparel, electronic spare parts and household appliances. Dong Nai is now home to 33 IZs attracting over 1,430 FDI projects from 43 countries and territories, with a total investment capital of over 29 billion USD.

The ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) has just revised the growth forecast for Vietnam’s economy in 2023, increasing it to 4.7% from the previous 4.4% stated in the July report. In the October quarterly update, only three economies in the ASEAN+3 region, encompassing 10 ASEAN countries and China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea (RoK), saw upward revisions namely Vietnam, Japan and Brunei. The overall growth forecast for the ASEAN+3 region in 2023 is 4.3%, down from the 4.6% projection in July. This decline is primarily attributed to weaker-than-expected growth in China during the second quarter. China's economic growth in 2023 is now projected at 5%, down from the 5.5% forecast in the previous report.

Last week highlight

The Government has tasked the Ministry of Finance (MoF) with conducting a review and submitting a proposal to the National Assembly to extend the 2% VAT reduction for another six months until mid-2024. The move followed the Government's assessment that the macroeconomy remains stable and inflation is under control. In the first nine months, economic growth reached 4.24%, with the third quarter alone showing an increase of 5.33% over the same period last year.

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Let’s look at some other key financial and business headlines during the past week