Vietnam made its best performances in Nikkei’s Covid-19 Recovery Index for May thanks to low infections on the path out of the pandemic.

Foreign visitors are welcomed to Danang, Vietnam. Photo: VNA

The index, which assesses countries on their infection management, vaccine rollouts, and social mobility, is characterized by lower infection and death rates, better inoculation coverage, as well as fewer movement restrictions.

Vietnam jumped up 48 places to the 14th among 121 countries and territories in the ranking, with the biggest improvement coming in its score for stringency, after the country allowed students to return to school and businesses to reopen.

Vietnam is also the first country in Southeast Asia to exempt foreign travelers from all testing, vaccination, and quarantine requirements. 

With more than 80% of the population fully vaccinated and 60% boosted, Vietnam received a score of 27 out of a possible 30 for inoculations. Among the vaccines deployed there as of May 8, up to 46% were mRNA shots produced by Pfizer and Moderna, 28% were AstraZeneca's viral vector vaccines and 23% were conventional jabs from Chinese manufacturers Sinopharm, according to the World Health Organization.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Health has said that it has enough vaccines to offer third and fourth shots to eligible people aged 18 years and older.

Vietnam’s economic recovery has gained significance and drawn foreign attention. Earlier this month, Germany’s newspaper Finanzmarktwelt run an article on Vietnam's fully opening and shifting to living safely with the pandemic despite Omicron waves this year.

It highlighted Vietnam’s export of electronic products, especially mobile phones, garments-textiles, and timber products.

Meanwhile, more and more foreign firms have planned to move their supply chains to Vietnam, which is dubbed as a center of electronics, garments-textile, and footwear in the region, according to Tim Lee Lahaphan, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank.

Among sectors, domestic tourism, which makes up around 10% of the country’s GDP, is bouncing back after Vietnam announced its complete resumption of tourism activities in mid-March, 2022.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecast Vietnam’s economy will expand by about 6.5% this year.