Surplus in balance of payments and some policy recommendations for Vietnam

Abstract

The balance of payments (BoP) is a critical macroeconomic indicator that helps understand the overall picture of a country's economic transactions with foreign ones. Vietnam's BoP has continuously been in surplus in recent years, even when heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic. Based on descriptive statistical methods, comparison, analysis and synthesis, this article has shown that the surplus in the current account of Vietnam was mainly due to the surplus in the trade balance. In addition, despite receiving large remittances, the amount of money that Vietnam had to pay to foreign investors was always much more excess than that Vietnam earns from investing abroad, causing the balance of income to run in deficit. Vietnam's financial account was also in surplus because she has received an enormous amount of foreign direct investments. The surplus in Vietnam's BoP has enhanced Vietnam's external position, but it has put pressure on the domestic currency to appreciate and warn of future macroeconomic uncertainties. Therefore, in the future, Vietnam needs to determine the priority in its policy whether to stabilise the exchange rate or have an independent monetary policy in the context of increasingly liberalised capital accounts.