Vietnam´s road to the future ?

Vietnam will get the biggest loan in its history – an ammount of US $1.1 bn from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to build a 244km highway, linking its capital Hanoi with mainland China . It will operate as a toll road so that the entire loan will be recovered within its first 10years of operation, referring to analysts prediction . Once the highway is completed, probably in 2012, drivers will be able to make the trip in less than one day, instead of two or even three days. The reduced travel time would increase employment opportunities in Vietnam, especially the north-west region, where communities have not been able to join in the country’s new prosperity. Furthermore with the cross-border benefits its ability to export agricultural and maritime products to China will be increased. Vietnam’s economy has been rapidly expanding over the past decade

„Vietnam needs modern highways to help remove the country’s transportation bottlenecks, accelerate economic growth and ultimately expand economic opportunity for Vietnamese families,“ said John Cooney, a director of the ADB

At the 20th anniversary of the meeting at which the Communist Party decided to abandon state socialism, Vietnam is faced with the possibility of collapse. This had brought the country close to famine as it dealt with the consequences of war. Over the previous four decades the communists had fought the armies of France, Japan, the United States, Cambodia and China • When Vietnam’s Communist Party ended on December 18th 1986, few could have imagined the new direction the country is facing towards.

To give an example : More and more multi-national companies are trying to benefit from its young population with an economic growth of 8% a year. Something that has yet only been accomplished in an Asian country by China. Vietnam intends to become a middle income country. Still, people from the countryside are doing less well than the ones living in the cities. The numbers of 1993 said that 58% of the population was classified as being under the internationally-accepted poverty line, but that figure had fallen to less than 20% by 2004. Looking at Vietnam today it is a very different place. Free markets were introduced and in the past 10 years, Vietnam has boomed. The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is described as a capitalist playground with a well-educated and well-disciplined workforce. It is currently trying to shaking off the vestiges of its war-wracked past, and faces its rapid economic growth; meeting a new generation of young Vietnamese like thirty-year-old Alan Duong who owns a chain of shops in central Hanoi where she is selling market clothes and furnishings. As a professional fashion designer, she speaks fluent English, travels around the world and is representing a part of Vietnam’s new generation of modern, successful employers who are looking up to their own future. Mentioning the word future, Vietnam has a really bright one

„It’s like a completely different country from when it was in the mid-90s“

This statement includes poorer Vietnamese people, like Nguyen Thi Ha, who lives with her husband in a village 30km away from Hanoi.

„It’s an extraordinary growth by global standards – and it’s quite rare to find anyone in Vietnam who will say they’re not better off now than they were 10 years ago,“ she said

„The dream of young people in the past was to satisfy their boss, or become a member of the Community Party – it was the dream of the servant. Now people want to speak English and French, earn lots of money and live an international lifestyle.“

There is little doubt that most Vietnamese people are optimistic about the future.

~ von mi am März 17, 2009.