Vietnam has raised itself up as a representative of the Asian Miracle after decades of war followed by years of difficulties, said French experts.
“Eurasia Review” network cited experts from the University of Paris’ Research Institute for Development as saying that Vietnam had experienced a spectacular decrease in poverty since the early 1990s and the percentage of the Vietnamese population living below the poverty line fell from 58 percent in 1993 to 14.5 percent in 2008.
Twenty-five million people have emerged from poverty in 15 years. Only 3.5 percent of the population was considered to be poor in urban areas in 2008, even though the cost of living continued to rise. The rate of wealthy people increased sharply due to its remarkable economic growth over the past 20 years, one of the fastest in the world. The country recently entered the sphere of emerging countries, said the experts.
According to the experts, Vietnam ’s success was attributable to its “renovation” policy in 1986 with the building of a socialist-based market economy and the establishment of a private sector alongside the public sector. The nation based its forward drive on export-based growth and rapidly joined the international economy. Now Vietnam is the world’s top exporter of both Robusta coffee and pepper and the second among clothing exporters to the US . In addition, the nation takes an active part in international bodies. In January 2007, the country became the 150th member of the World Trade Organisation.
Economic boom does not benefit all Vietnamese, they said, adding that to alleviate inequality among regions, the Vietnamese Government has pursued an ambitious policy of budget transfer from rich to poor regions which has enabled the poorer regions to develop their infrastructure, such as education, health, electricity, road network, water supply and drainage networks, and other social services.
The network said these strategies led to improvement in human development indicators. The primary schooling rate has reached nearly 100 percent and life expectancy rose from 63 years in 1990 to 68 in 2005 for men and from 67 to 73 for women. Vietnam is trying to fulfil its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) as scheduled by 2015.
However, the French experts suggested a number of challenges remained and Vietnam needed to combat poverty through such measures as reduction of the informal sector which involves street vendors, tradesmen and domestic services.
The global financial crisis had destroyed a large number of jobs and reinforced the informal sector in Vietnam , they said, adding that the sector constituted 50 percent of the labour market and generated an estimated 20 percent of its GDP.
The expert recommended the government provide microcredit and training and set up a social welfare system for workers in the sector./.
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