May 10 (Bloomberg) -- Like other would-be tiger economies,
Vietnam faces a trifecta of new threats: a crisis-paralyzed
Europe, a faltering America, and a newly spendthrift Japan. Yet
the biggest risk to the nation’s future may be old-fashioned
nostalgia.
It has been 27 years since Hanoi launched the “Doi Moi”
reforms that allowed privately owned companies to participate in
the economy and opened key sectors, such as agriculture. The
rapid growth that followed propelled Vietnam toward the realm of
middle-income nations, transforming the onetime war zone into a
case study for development and poverty reduction. Now, though,
Vietnam’s 1986 blueprint for a “socialist-oriented market
economy” is looking dated.
