Dissatisfaction about the status of half-market, half-State economy shown in the survey “Changing Attitudes toward Market and State 2014” (CAMS 2014) is even clearer than in CAMS 2011. People are seeing an incompletely-formed market economy operated in parallel with a hugely influencing State economy, and this “dual” economy has significantly slowed down the speed of transition into a market economy, as well as the progress of shifting from State ownership into private ownership in recent years, thus resulting in substantial implications for the economy and peoples' benefits.
At the CAMS 2014 announcing workshop organised in Hanoi by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and the World Bank (WB) in Vietnam, Mr Dau Anh Tuan, Director of VCCI Legal Department, said the CAMS 2014 report illustrates the feeling of the Vietnamese business community and other individual groups from different economic areas about the Vietnam's transition process into a market economy in the past time. According to the report, 89 percent of 1,600 respondents said they strongly support the market economy model in Vietnam, 71 percent advocate private ownership and 94 percent want transparency in policymaking and enforcement, slightly higher than those in CAMS 2011 (respectively 87 percent, 69 percent and 92 percent). Respondents highly assess the quality of some public services provided by the private sector (health, education, public notary and public transportation). Up to 99 percent of people surveyed agreed that the State should allow the private sector to provide some public services.
However, the assessment of Vietnamese people on the actual conversion to a market economy also showed no significant and clear perception differences in the nature of the state or the market of economy. The survey showed that for every five people saying that Vietnam's economy is basically a market economy, four others believe that Vietnam is basically a state economy. This result shows that the state economy and the market economy are still co-existing and not clearly separated.
According to the report, the partially formed market economy caused good aspects of the market such as competition, business performance and consumer interests not to be promoted, while flaws of the market, like legal compliance of enterprises or adverse price fluctuations that affect consumers, remain slow to be controlled and addressed. Under such circumstances, in spite of backing the market economy, a majority of people have no way other than turn to the State, such as in price control. Nevertheless, among major instruments that the State uses to stabilise the market and prices, the roles of State-owned enterprises (SOEs) and price stabilisation programme are underestimated in terms of effect by people. Many people even feel that those instruments are causing adverse impacts on people’s interests when they see SOEs inefficiently using social resources and price stabilisation programmes using financial sources primarily taken from people’s taxes.
With respect to the speed of economic reform, only 29 percent of respondents said the speed of transition to the market economy in Vietnam in the past five years was fast, while 36 percent said it was slow. Obviously, the process of transforming into the market economy is ongoing but the pace is below expectation.
Most market economy supporters still want to have the State’s intervention to stabilise the prices of essential commodities. The rate is 75 percent in the 2014 report, up 7 percentage points over 2011. The operation of market economy in Vietnam perhaps has not really built confidence and produced positive effects for society, e.g. creating competition, pushing price reduction, and improving product and service quality, so people expect the intervention of the State.
About half of respondents said that prices of essential commodities are determined by the market while the rest said prices of majority commodity groups are governed by State provisions. However, only 47 percent think these programmes are effective. Only 19 percent of respondents see the contributions of big SOEs to the economy positively or very positively, while 29 percent think their contributions are negative.
Tuan said a fifth of respondents are satisfied with current economic situation of the country. Meanwhile, a large number of people (47 percent) express concern over the widening gap between the rich and the poor in Vietnam. Nevertheless, 63 percent of participants believed that future generations will have a better life.
Supposedly, conducted in the context of accelerating reform, CAMS 2014 should have shown better sentiments than CAMS 2011 carried out in the context of intense turbulence caused by the global financial crisis. Yet, the feeling of Vietnamese people, including those working in the ruling apparatus of the Party, the National Assembly and the Government show considerable apprehension about Vietnam's market economy transformation process, from decelerating speed to implementation result and particularly the satisfaction and confidence of the people although the economy has recently showed optimistic signs and growing confidence, for example, higher growth of 6.02 percent or inflation curbed at a low level.
With certain limitations of a social survey, CAMS cannot explain why and where CAMS 2014 shows a setback in comparison with CAMS in 2011. Perhaps, this stems from the fact that above guidelines and policies do not have enough time needed to bring about expected efficiency. Needless to say, we need deeper, more concentrated studies on core issues of reform and market economic foundations to have more informed assessments and more thorough explanations on market economy development in Vietnam.
Anh Mai
Vietnamese
