Vietnam after 20 Years of Renewal: Great Progresses

Mrs Anna Lindstedt said the innovation has made deep changes in social and political life. Innovation has also had a big impact on Vietnamese views over foreign affairs policies. has also had a big impact on Vietnamese views over foreign affairs policies. Vietnam organised an agenda on amendments to laws and regulations related to its entry to the WTO. Many law codes and laws, with consultancy from related sides during the compilation period, have been ratified in a short course of time. However, Mrs Anna Lindstedt also warned that it is not enough for Vietnam to only possess good legal documents, the important point is that those good legal documents should quickly take effect. In order to achieve this aim, the quality of public administrative system is crucial.

 

From economic victories
According to MSc Dinh Hoang Thang, a member of the Vietnam Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Vietnam, in recent years, has reaped great victories in foreign relations, such as, the breakthrough in economic embargo and blockade and the expansion of multilateral and diversified foreign affairs relations.

 

All nations treasure Vietnam’s role in Southeast Asia. From the sudden loss of traditional markets, Vietnam has gradually set up and considerably expanded its import-export markets with commercial partners with the formula of diversifying foreign economic relations. Until now, Vietnam has signed nearly 70 bilateral commercial accords with a combined turnover of US$43.5 billion. Of this sum, export revenues reached US$ 31.5 billion (estimation for 2005) and the import turnover hit US$24 billion in 2004. The total value of import-export goods and service currently accounts for over 90 per cent of GDP. So, the Vietnamese economy has become an economy with high open and integration rates.

 

Assessing the economic integration process of Vietnam, Mr. Jorn Dosch, from the East Asia Studies Department of Leeds University, United Kingdom, said: Vietnam considered ASEAN “a strong tool to speed up reform, modernisation and economic integration with this active region.” Vietnam has reduced all import taxes to 0 - 5 per cent, except for those on Exclusive Lists or sensible goods provided in CEPT/AFTA agreement. Actually, since entering ASEAN, Vietnam has used this association as a momentum for its approach to other international organisations.

 

To social achievements
Vietnam is still considered an agricultural economy where nearly 70 per cent of its population lives in rural areas. According to Associate Professor - Doctor Le Thi Quy of Social Sciences and Humanities University, all economic sectors have initially diversified. The commodity exchange and market have been developed. Several regions have been enriched thanks to economic renewal. The publicity in admitting women’s rights in land ownership is regarded as a great revolution in rural areas. Gender equality has encouraged women to gain initiative and creativeness in production and increased responsibilities of both men and women. According to official statistics, female National Assembly members account for 27.3 per cent in the ninth term (2002-2007). The percentage of female members in the People’s Council at the provincial, district and communal levels has increased in the recent latest terms. Particularly, for the 2004 - 2009 tenure, 19 per cent of members in the communal level are female while the percentage of female members in district and provincial/municipal levels is 23 per cent and 23.9 per cent, respectively. With these percentages, Vietnam ranks second in the Asia-Pacific region and the ninth in 135 countries in World Parliament Union in terms of woman parliament members. The literacy of Vietnamese people is quite high while differences between men and women are not so deep.

 

Future Development Orients
However, it is widely believed that Vietnam will face huge challenges in maintaining its successes in the future. This is because Vietnam has a low economic starting point while other economies in the region like Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong have faster reforms and several factors may affect competitiveness. Mr. Thang Van Phuc, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, pointed out several of Vietnam’s shortcomings, including unclear definitions of the State role as a socio-economic manager, a development investor or a social welfare distributor. Hence, the State is still engaged in many investment and business activities and illogically intervenes in many other economic activities. On the other hand, Vietnam gives a free rein to the State management over necessary fields. The role of the State as a development investor or intervening in administrative processes has not been defined satisfactorily. With the above shortcomings, in the coming time, Vietnam has had to redefine the role of the State in the market economy and continue speeding up international economic integration.

 

Therefore, an economist has said that if Vietnam wants to be successful in future competition, it must not only run but also run faster than other rivals, or in other words, Vietnam needs to further open its market and improve the investment and business environment.

 

After 20 years of innovation, Vietnam has gained great successes in various fields, especially economic and international integration achievements. Thanks to the integration process, Vietnamese enterprises have become aware of and taken part in the increasing international economic integration. It can be affirmed that competition and integration pose both an opportunity and a challenge for the Vietnamese business community. They have forced Vietnam to add more effort to survive and develop. If an enterprise is weak and incapable of competing, it must end operations to concede room to active and potential enterprises. Although the competitive of Vietnamese enterprises is low compared with the world level, many improvements have been made during the 20 years’ innovation. Vietnamese enterprises can compete with foreign-invested enterprises in various fields such as information technology, telecom, manufacturing and tourism. Further evidence for Vietnamese improvement in competitiveness is that after 20 years over 200 commodities are assessed as marketable on the world market, a fact which helps increase the annual trade turnover by over 20 per cent.

 

I think that in the coming time, apart from sharpening competitiveness, Vietnamese enterprises must pay attention to developing human resources and macro management capabilities. In order to raise capabilities in coping with outside impacts, Vietnamese enterprises need to co-operate to compete with international firms. VCCI and the Vietnamese business community are proud to play a certain role in this process. Surely, in coming years, the Vietnamese business community will continue to have new changes such as competitiveness improvement in business and production in order to continue penetrating into the world economy.

The 20 years’ development of the corporation stands alongside the strong growth period of the country. Especially since the Land Law took effect in 1993, the company had a strong ground to develop. Saigon Real Estate Corporation has gained precious experience and property investment forms from countries with strong and established stock exchanges for the land and house trading with simple procedures. At present, the State has no precedent in stipulating this form of stock exchange. As a result, we have provisionally called it a property investment credit model. 20 years is a long time for an enterprise but with the common development of the nation, we will have a faster growth.

Over 20 years of developing the Hau Giang pharmaceutical trademark, we have witnessed non-stop development of a pharmaceutical enterprise in the Mekong Delta region. A State-owned enterprise on the verge of going bankrupt in 1989 with an annual turnover of VND 27.4 billion (US$1.71 million we gained a turnover of VND450.7 billion (US$28.17 million) in 2004. These remarkable achievements have brought Hau Giang Pharmaceutical to the top of the pharmaceutical company list in Vietnam over many consecutive years. On the other hand, amendments to State policies have helped enterprises to grow and promote their competitiveness. We believed that the growth of the nation has created momentum for Hau Giang Pharmaceutical to develop.

 

With new changes in policies and mechanisms, the electricity sector, in recent years, has entitled more authority in execution and investment policies. Hence, various sources of capital and forms of investments to meet the soaring demand for electricity have carried out hundreds of electrical investment projects.

 

The electricity sector was very proud to carry out two of the country’s largest projects, namely the 500-KV electrical line - switch 2 and the Son La Hydropower Plant. The completion of the 500-KV electrical line - switch 2 before the schedule set by the government had helped the northern Vietnam resolve the electrical shortage in May 2005. The construction commenced on the Son La Hydropower Project marks a milestone in tireless efforts and growth of the Electricity Vietnam. At the same time, the electrical sector is still focusing on developing a competitive electrical market, diversifying investment modes, expanding business scopes, reshuffling management methods and orienting EVN to develop as an influential economic group.

 

In 1986, Vietnam began reforming its economy. The Vietnamese tourism sector in general and the Ho Chi Minh City’s tourism in particular were primitive. I joined the tourism sector at a time when the sector was undergoing a big change. Ho Chi Minh City, in that year, expected to attract one million international tourists. The then national tourism sector developed sluggishly. Our company had annual revenue of several billion Vietnamese dong but had more than 400 staff. Hotels were like rest houses. In 1989, Palace Hotel had only two regularly disordered Otis elevators installed by Americans in 1972. At that time, the United States still imposed a trade embargo on Vietnam so that we had no spare parts to fix them. In 1990, then leaders of the company gathered to propose the purchase of spare parts for the repair of the broken elevators, set up an appraisal committee, expand business boundary and laundry enterprises to serve tourists. It was undeniable that enterprises encountered numerous difficulties in the transitional time, especially in investment. In order to make a new breakthrough, all staff thought that the change of the sector is crucial. In 1990, I was appointed the deputy director. At that time, the hotel infrastructure was very poor and all our staff had to try their best to work. We had to learn experience from the real life. The then motto of our staff was: Caring customers lead to success. And, another success of us was to timely recognise that the hotel management needs customer-serving technique.

 

Providing good tourist packages is not very difficult but needs care and dedication on the part of the hotel. Until now, SaigonTourist has affirmed its trademark in the market. In order to reap success, we need timely and definite actions. SaigonTourist has gradually raised its annual revenue from VND1,100 billion (US$68.75 million) to VND2,200 billion (US$137.5 million). In the 2001-2002 period, the corporation continued upgrading hotels and cooperating with other provinces to build tourist sites. The revenue of SaigonTourist in 2005 has hit over VND4,000 billion (US$ 250 million) and is expected to reach VND8,000 billion (US$500 million) by 2010.
Ba Tu-Nguyen Xuan