HANOI (Reuters) -The International Monetary Fund said on Wednesday that Vietnam’s economic growth this year would slow to 5.4% from last year’s expansion of 7.09% under a “high tariffs” scenario.
The Southeast Asian industrial hub has held several rounds of negotiations with the U.S.
to strike a deal to avoid the Trump administration’s threatened 46% tariff rate on its exports. “The outlook is heavily dependent on the outcome of trade negotiations and is constrained by elevated global uncertainty on trade policies and economic growth,” the IMF said in a statement.
The IMF said under the high-tariff scenario, economic growth would decelerate further next year, but added that “if global trade tensions subside, the economic outlook would improve significantly”.
An IMF team met with senior officials of the government, central bank, finance ministry, think tanks and other stakeholders over the past two weeks, it said in a statement.
(Reporting by Khanh Vu; Editing by John Mair)
