Vietnam Economy Overview

According to thereligionfaqs, Viet Nam is a traditionally agricultural country, like the other states of the Indochinese peninsula; its economic structures before the forced and very long political division presented a substantial unity, linked as they were both to the common matrix of a typically rural world and to the same interventions operated by the colonial regime, even if the French presence had been more marked in the South of Village. The most relevant effects of colonial rule were the introduction of plantation crops (the main ones were those of Hevea, tea, coffee), the construction of roads and railways, the birth of the first industries, the strengthening of extractive activities, the opening of the country to foreign trade: with only partially positive repercussions for the Vietnamese economy. The massive importation of artifacts, especially from France, provoked the crisis of the flourishing local craftsmanship, only partially replaced by the productions of the new industries, the proceeds of which benefited foreign financial groups anyway. On the other hand, the country drew very little profits from plantation agriculture, while there was a widespread decline in food farming. At the same time it was forming, especially in the then Saigon, seat of the French administration, a class of officials openly corrupt and totally subordinate to foreign interests: French first, then Americans. With the division of the country and the establishment of two clearly opposed political regimes, the respective economic structures also underwent radical changes, although in both southern and northern Viet Nam the protracted war of enormous proportions prevented any real development. and conditioned a large part of the production activity to its own needs. In the North, however, from the first years of independence, the foundations were laid for the transformation of the economy in a socialist sense. It concerned above all the agricultural regime, which was subjected to reforms aimed at the elimination of large private property and the creation of state-owned companies and even more so of cooperatives, facilitated by the traditional community spirit of the Vietnamese people. The industrial sector also received considerable impulses, through direct government intervention as regards the major companies, but also indirectly by soliciting the  formation of artisanal cooperatives and small industries subsidized by the state, decentralized and generally not separated from rural life: this as a solution to the problems of industrialization in a country with strong agricultural traditions, a bit like it happened in China in the period of the “great leap forward”.

During the twenty years of division in the South, on the other hand, a line of development was intensively followed industrialization in a country with strong agricultural traditions, a bit like it occurred in China in the period of the “great leap forward”. During the twenty years of division in the South, on the other hand, a line of development was intensively followed industrialization in a country with strong agricultural traditions, a bit like it occurred in China in the period of the “great leap forward”. During the twenty years of division in the South, on the other hand, a line of development was intensively followed capitalistic: an orientation facilitated by the fact, which has already been mentioned, that in this part of the country the colonial presence had operated in a more profound way, arousing a mentality and economic situations more solicited in the Western sense. The war naturally conditioned every subsequent development, both for the US action aimed at creating military infrastructures and for the very serious economic and social imbalances deriving from the war situation; in particular, the flight of the peasant populations towards Saigon contributed to further impoverish the already precarious agriculture, while the city became overstated, creating social classes without a true identification and a true activity. It can be said that in principle the North Vietnamese productive structures, simple and flexible, have held up sufficiently well to tremendous impact of the war, facilitating at the end of the conflict the effort, however powerful, for the rebuilding of the country; on the other hand, southern Viet Nam found itself with a confused economic situation, weighed down by bad governance and corruption, burdened by the phenomenon of the very strong urbanization, while the rural masses, moving to the cities, had by now interrupted all links with the traditional environment of life and work. However, the differentiation between the two sections of the country grew as a result of the new economic policy guidelines introduced since 1986. Once the modest results of forced collectivization had been ascertained, a process of liberalization was in fact initiated aimed at increasing the productivity of a system that appeared to be largely overburdened. from the inefficiency of the nationalized sectors, opening the country to foreign investments, protected by the same new Constitution of 1992 and to a market-oriented socialist economy.