NEWS FROM VIETNAM

Consultative Group Pledges Funds and Vietnam Announces New Economic Reforms

Meeting in December, the World Bank Consultative Group for Vietnam pledged $US 2.8 billion in aid, commending Hanoi for reducing poverty but urging the government to step up implementation of the three year economic reform agenda already drawn up by Vietnamese ministries. To support that effort, donors earmarked $700 million to support costs of accelerated economic reform, such as retraining of laid off workers. $500 million set aside last year as conditional on economic reforms was never distributed, and the Consultative Group this year noted that, while excellent work had been done in paving the way for reform, the reforms themselves needed to follow that newly paved way.

The World Bank has expressed concern that Vietnam’s successes in cutting poverty are at risk if economic growth is allowed to drop off for want of quicker reforms. Today somewhere between 30 and 45% of Vietnam’s 79 million people live below the poverty line, a figure that was closer to 70% in the mid eighties. Consultative Group donors warned that foreign investment inflows for 1999 may be at the lowest level since 1992 at only $600 million, and that economic growth is liable to drop to 3.5 percent in 2000 and continue falling without a substantial improvement in the country’s business climate.

Shortly after the Consultative Group meeting, Vietnam announced a plan to remove policies that favor state-owned enterprises (SOEs) over private enterprises and renew efforts to attract foreign investors to Vietnam. In conjunction with this plan, loans from the Asian Development Bank will be used to strengthen the institutional and policy framework of state-owned enterprises, improve labor mobility and provide private enterprises with improved access to foreign investment and credit.

A National Enterprise Reform Committee will act as a clearing house to steer progress towards more market-based and commercially oriented SOEs. The first task of the committee will be to draw up an integrated reform program to reform or divest failing SOEs. According to the ADB, past delays in implementing SOE reforms, along with the absence of a clear, consistent and economically tenable approach to the role of these enterprises in economic development, is in part to blame for the deteriorating financial position of many such enterprises. This in turn undermines both the financial sector and the Government’s financial position.

n addition to SOE reform, the Government will establish a single office in Hanoi where foreign investments of over $US 10 million can be approved and licensed on the national level, as well as provincial level “one-stop shopping” for smaller FDI. Other legal changes are included in the plan as well, all aimed at attracting foreign investors and encouraging private ventures, primarily by removing old hurdles to investment. (VNA)

Welfare for Agent Orange Victims

Prime Minister Khai announced a plan to provide subsidies to war veterans and their children affected by toxic chemicals sprayed by the US during the Vietnam war. Through the two point program, officers, soldiers, members of political and/or mass organizations and young volunteers who worked in areas subject to US spraying between 1961 and 1975 will receive VND 100,000 per month if they are totally disabled and not able to work, while those who have only partially lost their working capacity will receive VND 88,000 per month. These people have yet to receive any social welfare benefits reserved for war invalids.

In the second portion of the program, children who have suffered birth defects as a result of the spraying but are still alive will also receive monthly subsidies. Those children who are so critically disabled that they are not able to work or carry out their daily lives will receive VND 84,000 per month, while those who are able to carry out their daily lives, though not able to work, will receive VND 48,000 each month. Provisions have also been made to offer health insurance to victims as well. The decision, which came into effect January 1, 2000 calls for funding to come from local budgets and national employment promotion and poverty alleviation funds. (VNA)

AIDS Education Project

The South China Morning Post reported in December that the Vietnamese National AIDS committee has opened an AIDS and sex education café in Hanoi that will be staffed by a female physician who specializes in reproductive health as well as an HIV/AIDS counselor available to customers of the café, called “Window of Love.”

The Vietnamese Ministry of Health says that young adults are contracting HIV faster than any other group, and HIV infections in Vietnam are expected to reach 160,000 by the end of 2000.

Agent Orange Victims Receive Ford Foundation Help

The Ford Foundation on July 26, 2000, granted $150,000 to Vietnamese Agent Orange victims. Professor Nguyen Trong Nhan, Chairman of the Vietnam Red Cross, received the aid in Hanoi from Dr Lisa Messersmith, a representative of the Ford Foundation in Vietnam. The money will help 2000 families affected by Agent Orange buy wheelchairs and rehabilitation facilities and help generate jobs for those victims, with an aim to improving their living standards.