With growth of 12.3 per cent in 2022, Vietnam’s digital economy is ranked second worldwide, behind only India, but it has been predicted that the country will slip to third behind Mexico and India in 2023 with growth of 10.3 per cent.

Head of the Department of Digital Economy and Digital Society at the Ministry of Information and Communications, Tran Minh Tuan, made the statement based on the Digital Economies Index published by the Financial Times and technology research company Omdia in November.

The FT-Omdia Digital Economies Index measures the size and growth of the leading digital economies from 2022 to 2026, during which Vietnam’s digital economy is set for compound annual growth of 8.9 per cent.

By 2026, Asia is predicted to have three of the world’s five fastest-growing digital economies, with Vietnam and India in first and second place, respectively, and Indonesia fourth.

According to the Southeast Asian digital economy research report e-Conomy SEA 2022, with the theme “Through the waves, towards a sea of opportunity”, released in October by Google, Temasek, and Bain & Company, Vietnam’s digital economy hit $23 billion in 2022 and is on track for $49 billion by 2025, becoming the region’s fastest-growing market on the back of a booming e-commerce sector.

Mr. Tuan said that although Vietnam’s digital economy remains modest in size, the country has substantial potential to expand its digital market.

The digital economy, he went on, is expected to have contributed 14.26 per cent to national GDP in the third quarter of 2022.