Doi moi

Vietnam not only successfully contained the pandemic but also posted a GDP growth of 2.91 percent, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying it was among countries with the best economic achievements. (Photo: VNA) Beijing (VNA) - China’s Newsweek ran an article recently highlighting the positive outlook for Vietnam’s economy. The article reviewed the country’s economic development since it embarked on its “Doi moi” (Reform) cause, most notably in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic spread globally and economies shrank deeply. Vietnam not only successfully contained the pandemic but also posted a GDP growth of 2.91 percent, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) saying it was among countries with the best economic achievements. The article also cited a World Bank (WB) forecast that Vietnam’s economy would grow 6.5 percent annually from 2021. The 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), meanwhile, set forth strategic targets for the short, mid, and long terms, specifically to 2025, 2030, and 2045, with a focus on foreign investment attraction, scientific-technological reform, and the transformation of the digital economy model. Over the next two decades, Vietnam will concentrate on industrial modernisation and scientific-technological reform, while its FDI policy will shift the focus from quantity to quality, with attention paid to high-tech and high value-added projects. Vietnam has therefore begun to conduct national digital transformation and set a task of developing digital economy, digital society and digital Government while closely combining digital Government with administrative reform, the article said, adding that transparency is considered a gauge of the efficiency of service and operational capacity of all-level agencies. The article also quoted Professor Kenichi Ohno from Japan’s National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS), who is the Japanese Government’s …

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The Hanoitimes - Since 2017, naval power has been the priority of Vietnam’s military modernization program. Vietnam was able to transform the military from a battle-hardened and technologically deficient force into the relatively modern and capable military at present. Vietnam's defense modernization tells a story of decades-long transformation. Photo: Reuters The country’s military expenditure increased by some 687% between 2003 and 2018 but the transformation itself will tell the full story of Vietnam’s defense modernization. Bich T. Tran, Ph.D. candidate at the University of Antwerp, described the military modernization was planned shortly after the establishment of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in 1976 , with the reunification of the North and the South of Vietnam after the Vietnam War ended. In February 1979 , China sent hundreds of thousands of troops over Vietnam’s northern border, following Vietnam's overthrow of the Beijing-backed Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia the month before. The brief but devastating war cost tens of thousands of lives, including untold numbers of civilians. When Vietnam launched the Doi Moi policy to reform and open its economy in 1986 , the country’s leaders emphasized the need to strengthen border security and to modernize its military, Ms. Tran, who is a visiting research fellow at the Global Affairs Research Center in Kyoto and a former Asia Studies Visiting Fellow at the East-West Center in Washington, wrote in an article for The Diplomat . They aspired to build the Vietnam People’s Army into a regular, reasonably organized, balanced, compact, and robust force in order to protect the nation’s hard-won national sovereignty and maintain the security of its borders, airspace, islands, and surrounding waters. It was during that period, in March 1988 , China used force to seize several features in the Spratly Islands from Vietnam, in a violent incident that led to the death of …

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The Hanoitimes - Most countries that fended off the first Covid-19 wave and reopened their economies such as South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, are now facing a second wave. “Vietnam has the right capability and creativity to deal with the Covid-19 crisis efficiently,” Nguyen Minh Cuong, principal country economist of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Vietnam, told Hanoitimes . Principal Country Economist of the ADB in Vietnam Nguyen Minh Cuong. What is your assessment of Vietnam's achievements in socio-economic development, especially since the Doi moi (Reform) in 1986? Vietnam has four major achievements in socio-economic development: Firstly , Vietnam has been able to maintain a rapid, consistent, and comprehensive economic development since 1986. This is a considerable feat, in my point of view. Indeed, Vietnam’s development is only behind China in terms of stability, and much better than regional peers. It is worth mentioning that Vietnam did not rely purely on any single driving force for growth. And the country’s inclusive growth translates into benefits for all economic participants. Secondly, Vietnam’s success in eradicating poverty has been recognized widely by international communities and organizations, including the ADB, the World Bank and UNDP. In a short period of time, Vietnam’s GDP per capita had surged from an extremely low point of US$100 to US$2,700 in 2019. As a result, the rate of poverty plunged from 60% in the 1990s to around 6% in 2019, which, I suppose only Vietnam and China are capable of making this accomplishment. Notably, Vietnam has fulfilled the Millennium Development Goals (MDSs) in eradicating extreme poverty and hunger in 2005, ten years in advanced of its deadline. Thirdly, Vietnam has successfully transitioned from a centrally planned to a market economy. During this process, many key economic sectors have been restructured to become compatible with the market mechanism. …

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