Vietnam's rebounding economy

V not yet for victory

An impressive recovery may create problems of its own

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This is a very sloppy article. I don't understand the quote "if not bleaker" in the context of exports only falling 14% YOY when countries like Japan are suffering from 30% plus YOY falls in their exports. where does the author get evidence to support the view that "investors these days are averse to risky emerging-market govt debt"? Sovereign bonds sold by the philippines and Indonesia this year have cleared the market. Then the next sentence of foreign currency reserves falling does not necessarily follow from the sentence before it. there may be a lot of other reasons for the fall in foreign currency reserves. Anyhow the vietnamese govt has decided this year to issue US$demon debt into the domestic market. Why use foreign issued debt and pay more than 10% when you can finance yourself for around 4% in the domestic market? C;mon Economist tighten up your writing standards. (BTW FDI number you quote is new FDI commitments rather than FDI disbursements which most other organisations use)


Quite routine issues - openess, corruption, democracy. I would see the thing differently:

Everything has gone quite well now in Vietnam. The private sector is growing. That will be driving force for future of Vietnam. The corruption would help so. Sounds strange! isn't it??. Private sector will lobby for its interest. That is corruption in Vietnam. Private sector become stronger. Economy will better. Ordinary citizen will enjoy it. Different private group will compete first in corruption environment. Then come the time when the corruption environment is too tight room. The private group will see that democracy environment will be the most suitable environment to compete. Then Vietnam become developed democratic state. So do be so anscious about now. Look at the way the things will go. That is exactly USA and other countries had gone through. So All THE BEST TO VIETNAM.


There was so much talk on prevention of corruptions in Vietnam and I am personally think the West was over reacted and some come to a conclusion ONLY democracy will end corruptions. I am thinking it differently: Corruptions were opportunities the laws have yet to be considered in the system and were signs of good businesses and democracy! Stop corruptions democracy will die with it!


Yeah, Is Consensus Economics Information Center (CEIC) that accurate about Asia? Was PEER accurate about Asia reviews?
It was true that Vietnam did effected by the world financial crisis with minimal scaled; some foreign manufacturing Vietnam base gone busted and was a domino effects from elsewhere.
Vietnam will be the last place on earth where investors will be sure of profits for their money supported Vietnam has a great young, educated and talented work force.
Red tape and corruptions in Vietnam were minimal compared with bosses's bonus in Europe, the US and elsewhere!


Economist: [“AT THE start of the year, the prognosis for Vietnam’s economy looked as bleak as—if not bleaker than—that for other export-oriented poor countries. …Yet the economy is now forecast to grow robustly over the next couple of years. Credit is cheap and flowing…"].

What’s being conveniently omitted in the mention was that Vietnam requested and got a huge cash loan from China last year in the neck of time.


why is it wrong with countries financing their own debt instead of borrowing US paper money and financing in the end the us deficit by recirculating toilet paper (as the economist aptly described it recently)?


I agree with the author about the future job creation for the very young population. There will be no doubt that social unrest and poverty will emerge stronger if the government does not know how to address their economic policies wisely.


Potential Grammatical Error Paragraph 6: it will be hard ease persistent and perhaps self-fulfilling fears about the return of inflation. hard to ease?



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