Vietnam at the crossroads – An analysis and draft for reform of the Vietnamese economy

Abstract

As the result of the “Doi-Moi” reform policy, Vietnam has experienced a remarkable phase of growth since 1986. In this period the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) quadrupled. Since the population of Vietnam (about 88.5 million people in 2010) is currently growing by more than one million people annually, the increase in per capita income lags behind GDP growth, but still reached 2900 U.S. dollars in 2009,which ranks 1652 in the world (see Table 1). In order to prevent its per capita income from falling off because of this huge increase in population growth, Vietnam needs a real GDP growth of over 5%. Although the poverty rate was decreased from 58% to 13% between 2003 and 2008, considerable regional disparities especially between rural and urban areas continue to persist.