London (VNA) - The Vietnamese economy has fared better than mostduring the COVID-19 pandemic and is well placed to capture renewed FDI interest, according to an article posted on the UK website lexology.com on June 23.

The article said in recent years, the VietnameseGovernment has focused on opening its market while also boosting itsinternational trade ties. After joining the World Trade Organization (WTO) in2007 and many regional conventional trade agreement with the US, China, Europe,Japan, the Republic of Korea (RoK) and most of the significant economies in theworld, the country has become a member of the “new era” global free tradeagreements that form the biggest trading blocks of the world today such as theComprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), theRegional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as well as free tradeagreements with the European Union, Japan and the RoK.

It noted that Vietnam’s position in the World Bank’s annual ease of doing business ratingshas climbed from 91 out of 183 countries in 2010 to 70 out of 190 countries in2019, adding that the country has also begun to look away beyond low-techmanufacturing to high value added and high tech sectors of the new economy,industry 4.0 and digital transformation.

Aware of that the ability to hold on to its competitive edgein the cheap manufacturing space is very limited, Vietnam has thrown its weightbehind high-value industries such as electronics and software engineering,positioning itself to capitalise upon the fourth industrial revolution.

The electronics industry is one of the country’s fastest-growing. The value of itselectronics exports rose from 47.3 billion USD in 2015 to 96 billion USD in2020, accounting for a third of national exports. In the global ranking ofelectronics exporters, Vietnam has climbed from 47th place in 2001 to 12thplace in 2019.

The article cited statistics of the Vietnamese Ministry of Industry andTrade data which showed that FDI firms accounted for 95 percent of electronicsexport revenue in the first quarter of 2021. It affirmed that there is littlereason to suspect that this trend will change in the coming years.

Vietnam has committed to climbing the manufacturing valuechain through FDI and has been working for years to upskill its population inpreparation. The Vietnamese government’s economic and regulatory efforts willhelp drive FDI towards the Southeast Asian nation in the coming years, wrotethe article./.