Vietnamese optimistic on economic future: poll

Vietnamese optimistic on economic future: poll

Customers peruse displays of clothes and toys at Dong Xuan wholesale market in Hanoi on July 29, 2014. Photo: Reuters

Most Vietnamese maintain a rosy outlook on their economic future, while the rest of the world remains glum about an uneven global economic recovery, according to a new international survey.

Seventy-four percent of Vietnamese people expect their economy to get better over the next 12 months, third after the Chinese (80 percent) and Peruvians (77 percent) among the 44 nations surveyed from March 17 to June 5 by the Pew Research Center.

Vietnamese have reason to feel positive as their economy was predicted to grow by 5.6 percent this year and 5.7 percent next year by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), according to the survey.

Meanwhile, “in most nations, people say their country is heading in the wrong direction and most voice the view that economic conditions are bad,” the Pew poll said.

More than half of Greeks anticipate economic conditions worsening over the next 12 months. Forty-eight percent of the French expect their economy to deteriorate, as do 46 percent of Lebanese and 44 percent of Palestinians.

Greek pessimists, however, may be pleasantly surprised: The IMF foresees the Greek economy improving from 0.6 percent growth in 2014 to 2.9 percent in 2015.

Similarly, while less than half the Lebanese expect more hard times, the IMF forecasts Lebanon’s economy to accelerate from 1 percent growth in 2014 to 2.5 percent in 2015.

The US public falls somewhere between the two groups (optimists and pessimists), with Americans equally divided on the future of their economy: 35 percent expect it to improve, 33 percent assume it will remain about the same and 30 percent foresee it worsening.

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