Vietnam's Economic Growth After the President's Resignation

Vo Van Thuong, President of Vietnam, resigned from his post after being dismissed by the ruling Communist Party for unspecified violations.

Parliament appointed Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan as acting president on Thursday (March 21, 2024). Presidential terms, like all other high-ranking positions, are set to expire in 2026, but the party seems to prefer a permanent president for the next two years.

Citing Reuters via Katadata, this is the second forced resignation of a president in the last year amid ongoing political intrigue.

This political turmoil is unsettling foreign investors who have invested hundreds of billions of dollars, largely in factories exporting to America and Europe.

Vo Van Thuong was considered a rising star, the youngest member of the ruling party's Politburo, and a protégé of party chief Nguyen Phu Trong. His downfall was as sudden as his rise from a relatively low position within the party ranks.

After a year in office, how did Vietnam's economic growth perform under Vo Van Thuong?

According to Trading Economics data, Vietnam's economic growth in Q1 2023, when Thuong assumed office in March 2023, was 3.41% (year-on-year/yoy).

This was down 2.51 percentage points from the final quarter of 2022, which stood at 5.92%.

Growth then slightly increased by 0.84 percentage points in Q2 2023 to 4.25% (yoy).

Subsequent quarters saw consistent growth increases, reaching 5.47% (yoy) in Q3 2023 and 6.72% in Q4 2023.

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