Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam is among the “brightest” spots in Asia despite the challengeof trying to contain the coronavirus pandemic and its economy is poised to rebound, said Edward Teather, a senior ASEAN economist from the UnionBank of Swizerland (UBS).

“Vietnam is suffering some pain from theimpact of COVID-19, but the outlook is looking like one of the brightest in theregion.”

“Retail sales, imports and industrialproduction were all actually up on-year in the month of June, which is betterthan you can say for most economies in the region,” he told CNBC.

Manyeconomies contracted in the second quarter of 2020 compared to a year ago,but Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew slightly at anestimated 0.36 percent.

Lauding Vietnam’ssuccess in containing COVID-19, Teather said Vietnam is growing and iswell-positioned to continue to take global market share in terms of exportsgoing forward, so pretty bright prospects in a relative sense in the region.

Overall FDIlevels are likely to be hindered, in part because investors cannot travelfreely, he predicted. However, there is “plenty of activity” in the pipeline,and those investments could pick up in 2021 as border restrictions are eased.

Governmentsupport may also boost Vietnam’s economy, he said. “The prime ministerjust over the weekend was calling for more measures to support the economy, andthe central bank was actually saying they want to get credit growth up over 10percent.”

According to BusinessInsider, there's growing evidence that economies which fought coronavirusaggressively at the start of the pandemic are bouncing back faster than thoseslow to act.

Germanyand Vietnam, two nations that locked down swiftly early in the pandemic arealready showing V-shaped recoveries, while nations that were slow to react -such as the US, India and Brazil - look much more like to see slow, L-shaped returns tonormal.

Nikkei BPon July 9 also ran an article, saying Japan can learn from Vietnam’s experiencein the fight against COVID-19.

Accordingto the article, with a population of 96 million, the number of COVID-19 cases inVietnam stands at only 369 and there have been no deaths.

Vietnamhas attracted the due attention of the international community with policies onpandemic combat, it said./.