Vietnam: an economy in transition

Abstract

VIETNAM is a rather scenic land of some 300,000 square miles, with a long coastline of some 2,000 miles on the eastern side of the Southeast Asian Peninsula. While it has a per capita income estimated at less than US$ 200, the country has a high literacy rate (literacy: 90 per cent, 78 per cent females) with a considerable contingent of postgraduates, and a skilled population. After years and years of fierce and continuous fighting for independence, the country has now been unified. All of this has been accomplished after a long period of internal strife following the Geneva Conference in 1954, at which time it was agreed there would be a temporary partition of Vietnam into two parts, pending further elections. It turned out that this de facto partition lasted until 1975.