World Bank cuts Vietnam's 2020 GDP growth outlook to 4.9%

Residents wearing protective masks waiting for their turn for the coronavirus testing at a makeshift rapid testing centre in Hanoi, Vietnam, on Tuesday (March 31). Due to the crisis, Vietnam's GDP is expected to grow by only 4.9% this year, about 1.6 percentage points lower than the previous projection. - Reuters

HANOI: Vietnam's GDP is expected to grow by 4.9% this year, about 1.6 percentage points lower than the previous projection, according to a latest World Bank report.

Despite favourable prospects for the Vietnamese economy in the medium term, the country's GDP growth will be affected negatively by the global Covid-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, the World Bank said in a report titled "East Asia and Pacific in the Time of Covid-19," published on Tuesday (March 31).