A three-decade economic boom comes to a sudden halt in Vietnam

FOR the past three decades, Vietnam has known only good— or great economic news. The nation’s consistent growth as an exporter, propelled by Communist leaders who began embracing marketoriented policies in the late 1980s, pushed many into the middle class.

The coronavirus pandemic changed all that. With garment companies seeing orders slashed and other sectors hit with sudden export declines, Vietnam’s workers are enduring the downside of being tethered to the global economy. The economic slowdown in the US and other markets Vietnam depends on for growth is being felt on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, as well as in villages and tourist centers.

Le Thi Hoa, who sells pineapple and mango slices outside Ho Chi Minh City’s Ben Thanh Market in the heart of the commercial hub, is among those wondering where the good times have gone.

“Now people don’t go out,” said Hoa, 55, wearing a face mask and sitting on a plastic chair next to fruit baskets in front of a closed seafood restaurant. “I can only sell about a third of what I did before the epidemic.”

Vietnam has been one of globalization’s stars, transforming itself from a largely agricultural economy to a manufacturing powerhouse within the span of a few decades. With exports equivalent to the size of its GDP, Vietnam has seen its economy grow as fast as 7.02 percent in 2019. Now it’s bracing for the slowest growth in two decades, of 2.4 percent this year. During the second quarter, it expanded by just 0.36 percent from a year earlier.

“Vietnam has experienced a tsunamiof good news over the past 30 years ,” said ralf matt ha es, managing director of Infocus Mekong Research, who has lived in the country since 1994. “This is the first time since joining the global economic community two decades ago that Vietnam is experiencing a significant economic downturn.”

Vietnam’s abrupt slump highlights the sweep of the epidemic’s financial fallout and how even countries that have been relatively successful in containingthe virus are unable to avoid its economic afflictions. Such economies won’t be able to return to business as usual until the rest of the world does.