Illustrative image. (Photo: vneconomy.vn)The COVID-19 pandemic has put the brake on Vietnam’s economic growth over the last two years but, on the other hand, it has also fueled a significant uptick in e-commerce which recorded a 16% growth to 13.7 billion USD in retail revenue in 2021, according to the White Book on Vietnamese E-business 2022.
Last year, the economic growth hit the lowest in 30 years, at just 2.58%, with key services sub-sectors experiencing downturn.
Data from the General Statistics Office showed that retailing and wholesaling declined 0.21% year-on-year, causing the economy to decrease 0.02 percentage point. Warehouse and logistics plunged 5.02% and lodging and catering services 20.81%, leading to a drop of 0.3% and 0.51%, respectively, to the GDP growth.
Meanwhile, the share of turnover from e-retailing to last year’s total retail sales of goods and services was 7%, a year-on-year rise of 27% from 2020.
E-retailing is forecast to surge 20% this year to 16.4 billion USD, compared to 5 billion USD in 2015. A 2022 study by big data analysis company Metric.vn indicated that Vietnam is emerging as the second largest e-commerce market in Southeast Asia, only after Indonesia.
The White Book on Vietnamese E-business 2022 also reported that with online marketplaces now a vital distribution channel in the era of digitalisation, Vietnamese enterprises are investing more on expanding their presence on these platforms.
Those doing business on social networks, such as Facebook, Zalo and Instagram, spurred 41% in 2021 and 57% in 2022, according to the book./.