Vietnam moves up four places in 2023 Global Peace Index to 41st position

The annual study of the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace measures a nation’s state of peace across three domains: societal safety and security, the extent of ongoing domestic and international conflict, and the degree of militarisation.

With the score of 1.745 (the lower the better), Vietnam was among the nations with “high” level of peace, joining the ranks of Germany, Netherlands, Malaysia, the UK, Laos, Indonesia, Republic of Korea (RoK), Argentina, Chile, and Cyprus.

In the Asia-Pacific region with 19 countries and territories measured in the index, Vietnam is the 7th most peaceful place, after New Zealand and Singapore in the first and second place, but higher than RoK (8th) and Cambodia (13th), China (14th), or Democratic People's Republic of Korea (19th).

In the GPI ongoing domestic and international conflict domain specifically, Vietnam’s peacefulness is squarely among the top one third of countries measured with 1.403 in score.

Vietnam is also placed in the top third in the societal safety and security, as well as the militarisation domains.

The study also estimates that Vietnam suffers about 6% in percentage of GDP, or US$1,200 per capita as the economic costs of violence, making the country the 99th in terms of being most affected by violence.

Ukraine, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Democratic People's Republic of Korea top the list of suffering the most from economic costs of violence, with losses as percentage as their GDP estimated at 63, 47, 30, and 39%, respectively.

The economic impact of violence on the global economy in 2022 was US$17.5 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. This figure is equivalent to 12.9% of the world’s GDP or US$2,200 per person, increasing by 6.6% from the previous year, the study noted.

According to this year's findings, there has been a 0.42% decrease in the average level of global peacefulness, marking the thirteenth decline in peacefulness in the last fifteen years.

Iceland (with score of 1.124) continues to hold the title of the most peaceful country in the world since 2008, while Afghanistan remains the least peaceful country in the world for eight consecutive years.