Warning Vietnam: why the country's new leader is worried

越南新领导人的担忧

Money Talks from The Economist

2025-06-19

41 分钟
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Vietnam's economy may be booming—but To Lam, its new leader, isn't happy. Over the past 15 years, the country has achieved 6% average annual growth, powered by new factories—which have sprung up from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City—to make goods destined for export, largely to America. But many of those factories are foreign-owned and don't work much with Vietnamese firms. In addition Vietnam now risks being caught between a feuding Washington and Beijing. So what can Mr Lam do to revolutionise Vietnam's economy? Hosts: Ethan Wu and Mike Bird. Guests: David Dapice, emeritus professor of economics at Tufts University; and Nguyễn Khắc Giang, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. Transcripts of our podcasts are available via economist.com/podcasts. Listen to what matters most, from global politics and business to science and technology—subscribe to Economist Podcasts+.
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  • When Dominic Scriven first visited Vietnam in 1990,

  • The country was going through a period of profound change.

  • A time of great tumult.

  • The Soviet Union, which was the only really long-term ally of Vietnam,

  • had begun to dismember itself.

  • And there was extreme volatility in political thinking, but also in economic relationships.

  • For decades, Vietnam had relied on economic and military assistance from the Soviet Union.

  • When that dramatically reduced in the mid-1980s, an isolated Vietnam,

  • economically broken after a failed decade of collectivization, had to find a new way.

  • That new path was called doi moi, or restoration.

  • It opened up domestic markets and encouraged foreign investment,

  • a massive break from the past for a ruling communist party

  • usually fixated on stability and control.

  • Let us just imagine you've been following a particular system.

  • for 40 years, 41 years,

  • and then suddenly everybody is encouraged to change their views completely.

  • That's a very discomforting time.

  • Dominic set up Dragon Capital in Vietnam in 1994.

  • It's now the biggest private capital firm in the country.

  • We've sort of been there ever since, you know, going up and down with Vietnam,