Bob51
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Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 156
Location: Belfast
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 Posted: Tue Apr 19, 2005 7:39 am Post subject: The dog that didn't bark |
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Interesting to see what doesn't get mentioned.
Bob51
| Quote: | SCMP, Tuesday, April 19, 2005
BEHIND THE NEWS
Vietnam follows China's footsteps on the road to reform
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Vietnam is showing signs of growth and affluence as foreign money, mostly from overseas Vietnamese investors, flows in.
Nguyen Minh Triet was obviously being diplomatic when he was asked if China's growth was attracting foreign investments that could have gone to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.
"We see with great pleasure the development of China," said the secretary of the municipal party committee of Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon and Vietnam's premier commercial centre.
"We have to tell ourselves that we should not be envious. We should try harder [to improve our business environment] so that we could be on par with others, including China," said Mr Triet, also a politburo member of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP). "Vietnam and China are close neighbours. There are good relations between our two countries, our two ruling parties, our two governments and our two peoples."
Mr Triet's remarks, at a briefing for about 100 foreign journalists invited to report on the 30th anniversary of the country's reunification in 1975, contained no references to the old tension between the two countries.
During the VCP's struggle for independence from French colonial rule, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was its staunch supporter.
After Hanoi reunified the country in 1975, the friendly ties between the two communist regimes ceased because of their differences towards the former Soviet Union and Cambodia. China and Vietnam fought a brief but brutal war in 1979, which led to an exodus of Vietnamese-Chinese. Relations between the two countries were normalised in 1991, but they still maintain rival territorial claims to the Spratly and Paracel islands in the South China Sea.
In the past 20 years, however, Vietnam has again looked to China for inspiration, just as it did before the country became a French colony in the 19th century.
In many ways, the VCP's decision in 1986 to adopt relaxed agricultural and commercial policies to stimulate economic development could be compared with the CCP's resolution in 1978 to pursue a policy of reform and opening up to the outside world.
The Vietnamese policy of Doi Moi, or renovation, heralded the transformation of Vietnam's centrally-planned economy to a market-oriented one, and is comparable to China's bid to develop socialism with Chinese characteristics.
Vietnam has since become one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Gross domestic product grew at an average rate of 8 per cent between 1990 and 1997, and 6.5 per cent between 1998 and 2003.
For about 10 years after reunification, Vietnam experienced serious food shortages, caused by a baby boom and declining agricultural production after farmers failed to give their best at collectivised farms.
Today, although the country's population has grown more than five times to 82 million over the past 30 years, it has ceased to be a food importer. Instead, Vietnam has become the world's second-largest exporter of rice, and its exports of pepper and cashew nuts also rank among the highest.
Per-capita gross domestic product has reached US$480; in booming Ho Chi Minh City, it is up to US$1,800.
On the back of its prosperous agricultural sector, Vietnam has pursued an aggressive industrialisation programme. Just as China depended on overseas Chinese for investment, Vietnam is relying on its estimated three million overseas Vietnamese, or Viet kieus.
Mien Hue Dai is a Vietnamese-Chinese member of the Ho Chi Minh City Overseas Vietnamese Business Association who was born in Saigon but has lived in Taiwan, Hong Kong and the US. He said: "A year or so after China introduced a policy to free up the markets or attract foreign investment, Vietnam would do something similar."
Mr Dai's association colleague, Albert Franceskinj, a French-Vietnamese lawyer of DS Avocats, said: "China is a great laboratory for Vietnam, although Vietnam is doing it in its own way."
Officially, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Hong Kong are the five largest sources of investment to Vietnam, but overseas Vietnamese are often involved as joint-venture partners. Foreign investors are given preferential tax treatment, but are barred from total ownership of property and businesses in key sectors of the economy, such as transport.
Domestic investors are not subject to those restrictions, but enjoy no tax holidays. Association chairman Phan Thanh has found the flexible nationality rules convenient. Without giving up his US passport, he has bought land and built hotels in Ho Chi Minh City as a domestic investor.
Like China, Vietnam has faced the same ideological conflicts, of whether the encouragement of private business would be contrary to socialism, and whether Communist Party members should dabble in commerce. Mr Thanh and his fellow members said Vietnam was an attractive place to do business, but red tape and corruption have caused problems.
Le Thanh Hai, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, said the campaign against corruption was the government's top priority. "We need to improve our mechanism of economic management as we develop a socialist market economy," he said.
Vietnam is also seeking WTO membership. Negotiations are in their final stages, as the country readies for initial hardships expected to strike the currently protected sectors of its economy that will have to open up under WTO rules. "In the immediate future, we will face difficulties, but we will benefit over the long term," said Mr Triet. |
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