The Global Market and Economic Research Department of UOB Bank (Singapore) has just released a report on Vietnam's economic assessment in the second quarter of 2025. According to the General Statistics Office, Vietnam's GDP in the first quarter of 2025 increased by 6.93% over the same period but was lower than UOB and the market's expectations (7.1%) as well as an increase of 7.55% in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Although the long Tet holiday is partly a reason, the financial market is currently particularly concerned about US tariff policies. Previously, in the report on March 7, UOB warned that with an open economy and a large dependence on trade, Vietnam is vulnerable when global trade flows are interrupted. These risks increase as the Trump administration adheres to its trade deficit reduction policy.
On UOB's side, this agency still lowered its global growth forecast and forecast Vietnam's economic growth in 2025 by about 6%, lower than the previous 7%.
UOB maintains its GDP growth forecast for Vietnam at 6% for 2025 and 6.3% for 2026. In particular, growth in the second and third quarters of this year is expected to reach 6.1% and 5.8%.
With inflation somewhat cooling down, UOB predicts that the State Bank will keep the refinancing interest rate unchanged at 4.5%. Meanwhile, VND is likely to continue to fluctuate in the weak price range until the end of the next quarter. The bank forecasts the weakest USD/VND exchange rate in the third quarter at VND26,300 and recovered to VND26,100 in the last 3 months of the year.
Previously, the Economic Cooperation and Development Organization (OECD) also forecasted that Vietnam's GDP growth will slow down due to the decline in foreign investment and exports under the impact of global policy instability. OECD believes that Vietnam's GDP is estimated to reach 6.2% this year and 6% next year.
In the East Asia and Pacific Economic Update Report for April 2025, the World Bank (WB) forecasts that Vietnam's real GDP will grow by 5.8% in 2025.
