Vietnam’s PM met with Bush yesterday at the White House. The Wall Street Journal makes the point that this meeting would not have been possible if it weren’t for the success of Vietnam’s recent economic reforms. They praise the role of the private sector:
“Vietnam's economic success has been powered by the dramatic rise of a domestic private sector. The explosive growth in the size of this private sector is largely due to a series of domestic reforms, mostly notably a landmark Enterprise Law that came into effect in 2000 and replaced a protracted system of licensing new enterprises with a streamlined registration system. This reform removed a key barrier that had been hindering private sector development throughout the 1990s. The results have been remarkable: 120,000 new private firms have registered since 2000, tripling the number of private registrations that existed prior to the law.”
While these results have been promising, challenges remain. In particular regarding the implementation of reforms at the regional level. The coupling of economic reforms with decentralization can always be complicated, risking uneven development and sub-national tensions.
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