Tourism industry suffered
As of 4/2/2020, which has a border with China, Vietnam has recorded 9 cases of corona virus infection.
Although the number of infections is not high and there have been no deaths, the Government has taken relatively strong measures to prevent the risk of infection, for example: suspending the issuance of visas to tourists from China, suspending unorganized festivals, allowing students and students to leave school for a week.
At the recently released quick report on the impact of corona epidemic, analysts from Bao Viet Securities Company (BVSC) assessed that the above actions will have a certain negative impact on Vietnam’s economy. .
Specifically, like China, Vietnam’s service sector is assessed to be most affected by the corona epidemic, typically in the transportation, accommodation, tourism, retail, and restaurant sectors. leisure activities.
In 2019, Chinese tourists account for about 30% of the total number of foreign visitors to Vietnam, so stopping the visa for Chinese tourists will certainly cause the tourism industry to suffer.
In addition, the current time is the peak of spring tourism activities, festivals of domestic tourists so the disease will also make this activity significantly reduced. It is noteworthy that these are seasonal and seasonal tourist activities, so it is difficult to compensate for the coming months, even when the epidemic is out.
In Vietnam’s GDP structure in 2019, the service sector accounted for 41.6%. Although this proportion is not as high as that of China, the service sector accounts for 45% of Vietnam’s GDP growth.
In which, the sectors with much higher growth include: Wholesale and retail (up 8.82%); transportation, warehousing (up 9.12%) ... These are all industries that will be greatly affected by the disease.
Sum up the service groups that are directly affected by the decline in disease such as wholesale and retail; repair of automobiles, motors, motorbikes and motor vehicles; transportation, warehousing; accommodation and catering services; arts, entertainment and entertainment currently account for about 17.3% of GDP in 2019.
Agriculture and industry will also be "hit".
Apart from the service sector, the agriculture, forestry and fishery sector will also be negatively affected by the disease when export of agricultural, forestry and fishery products to the Chinese market may decline.
China is the main consumer market of Vietnam’s agricultural products when in 2019, agricultural exports to this market reached US $ 5.92 billion, accounting for 35%. Therefore, if trade with China is affected by disease outbreaks, the growth of the agro-forestry-fishery sector (already already at a low level) will be in danger of further decline, thus leading to demand. employment of workers in this sector also decreased.
However, BVSC also noted that the export of agricultural products to China via border trade was partly affected by the initiative from Vietnam. Therefore, when the epidemic is under control, or the management agencies provide a reasonable management method to maintain the import and export of goods while still controlling the people operating, BVSC said that , these activities will also be resumed quickly, thereby minimizing losses to Vietnam’s agricultural exports.
For the industry and construction sector, BVSC assessed that the disruption in the global supply chain stemming from the epidemic in China may affect the import of some commodities as input materials. for manufacturing in Vietnam.
According to the General Department of Customs, Vietnam’s total import-export turnover with China in 2019 accounted for about 30% of Vietnam’s total export turnover, of which exports to China accounted for 24%. while imports from China accounted for a higher proportion (38.7%).
On that basis, the epidemic in China could affect the production of some key export products that depend heavily on Vietnam’s imported materials such as phones and electronic components; computers, electronic products, textiles, footwear ....
Overall, BVSC stated that, with the current efforts and drastic measures of the Government, the spread of corona epidemic in Vietnam will be under control with a small number of cases and deaths.
In addition, Vietnam must also soon find out measures to adapt to the current epidemic situation to ensure the maintenance of the smooth flow of goods circulation and disease control (such as separating a driver team). , people operating exclusively from the border gate to China and a separate team working inland ...).
In this scenario, BVSC forecasts that GDP in the first quarter of 2020 may increase to around 6.5%, 0.2-0.4% lower than the same period in 2019, then gradually recover. starting from the second quarter of 2020. However, with the complicated and dangerous nature of the disease, BVSC does not exclude the possibility that Vietnam’s economy will continue to be negatively affected until the end of the second quarter of 2020.
