According to the Economist, as of October 1, Vietnam’s total public debts reached USD84.32 billion, accounting for 47.3% of the country’s GDP, up 10.6% from a year earlier.
Vietnam’s public debt
With a population of 90.96 million, each Vietnamese citizen would have to bear USD930.43 in public debt, were it to divided evenly.
Speaking at the government’s regular meeting on the afternoon of September 30, Chairman of the Government Office Nguyen Van Nen said the prime minister recently asked the Ministry of Finance to review the country’s public debt along with a few other economic indicators.
Nen said that there is still a lack of consistency in the current methods of calculating public debt in Vietnam, and the ministry must work out standardised and accurate calculation methods, file a report to the Party and National Assembly and then announce it to the public.
Currently, the ministry is providing information about public debt by bulletin, but these are not always up to date. The second bulletin was released last October.
According to the latest bulletin, the ministry claimed that Vietnam’s public debt accounted for only 55.7% of the country’s GDP, which is lower than the NA’s ceiling rate of 65%, and is still at manageable level in accordance with recommendations of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
However, according to estimates by Dr. Pham The Anh, Vietnam’s public debt accounts for as much as 98.2% of its GDP when taking into account debts held by state-owned companies that are not guaranteed by the government and accumulated debts for construction of infrastructure.
