Vietnam on a bumpy road to economic power

In the U.S., Vietnam has been largely out of public view in the three decades since the war. But during that time, Vietnam has gone through remarkable changes, and is now on the road to becoming an economic powerhouse.

Following a 2001 agreement with the U.S., trade between the countries has grown from $1.5 billion to $10 billion each year, and Vietnam has drawn many of the biggest U.S. firms.

But Vietnam also faces enormous challenges, with insufficient roads and infrastructure as well as significant inflation.

Worldfocus special correspondent Mark Litke and producer Ara Ayer travel to Vietnam, where an American Ford plant bustles outside of Hanoi.

http://worldfocus.org/

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• Ara Ayer
• economy
• Mark Litke
• New Vietnam
• Vietnam
• news
• Worldfocus

[sugoiking]

I'm just happy that Vietnamese people are now living in a happier / healthy country, i dont really cared about building tall building anymore, worry about the sick and homeless ones first then we'll worry about building those buildings :) cause why would you build a beatiful city with lot's of homeless and unhealthy people? that doesn't match with the image of a city. :)

Go Vietnam! :)

Vi3t4Lif3

[netcitizen1]

i have a faith that vietnam will soon become an industrialized country in more 15 years or 20 yrs and be able to catch up with some countries around south east asia. go forward VIETNAM

[bichodomato5]

@manullim In the current macroeconomic situation, a growth rate of 7% per year is very good.

[manullim]

@orangebiggy I do see that the living standard of the vietnamese is growing, which is a good thing. However, let's remember that tiger economies registered explosive break-neck growth rate at the early stage of development while the government was clean (or relatively clean). Also, they relied less on the FDI and rather on the accumulation of the own capital and technology. Vietnam has a long way to go, even to be called a "Tiger cub" economy.

[manullim]

@orangebiggy Vietnam's growth rate of 6~7 percent/ year is frankly disappointing. China has been growing at 10%/year or higher for several years. Former Tiger economies (Korea, Taiwan, etc) grew well over 10%/year in the 60s~80s. Also, corruption is a big problem in Vietnam as shown by Vinashin disaster.

[orangebiggy]

@manullim It's actually going really fast unlike some countries. It didn't try to modernize and launch economic reforms until 1995. And you have to consider 50+ years of war (French, American, Cambodian, Chinese) where another modern SEA country like Singapore (took 30 yrs) didn't.

[ooyummybunnyoo]

vietnam r smarttttttttt people....

[manullim]

Economic power? Tiger economy?

Vietnam has years of catching up to do in order to be called such...

[ToiYeuDatNuocCuaMinh]

@Khievin7 I agree with u. True wealth is knowledge,skills and know how. The problem is many skillful and educated Vietnamese migrates to oversea in search for,well other higher value paper currency like the declining USA currency. The government of Vietnam needs to adapt and change fast because Vietnamese is not oil rich or resources rich nation. Offering cheap labour to produce for Western nations is not a bright future, VN dont have billion pop labour force like China to compete.

[ToiYeuDatNuocCuaMinh]

Seeking advise from USA on economics? seeking IMF corrupted Western institute for assistance?OH SHIT!! Better seek else where.

[ToiYeuDatNuocCuaMinh]

Ford? What the fuck is a FORD? Piece of shit car.

[leozc]

the ford assembly in the video is very backward