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Vietnam joins world traders
As Hanoi adopts market economy within its socialist vision, it needs to address a legacy of inefficiency and corruption.
- Financial Times
- Published: 00:00 January 9, 2007
As Vietnam joins the World Trade Organisation on Thursday, completing a three decade-long journey to full integration with the global economic mainstream, Hanoi is formally committed to what it calls a "socialist-oriented market economy".
What that translates into is preserving a leading role for state-owned enterprises - a goal that could augur frustration for foreign companies clamouring to provide everything from banking services to hypermarkets to telecommunications for Vietnam's youthful, increasingly affluent market of 83 million people.
Economists warn that Hanoi's determination to preserve state dominance in key industries may be a drag on its quest for prosperity, generate a strong protectionist impulse and stifle the fledgling domestic private sector, which is already confronted by difficulties in accessing land and credit and a deep official suspicion of private capitalists. But Hanoi's leaders are undeterred.
"Their model is that the state controls the commanding heights of the economy - and that you can have mom-and-pop capitalism that can generate exports and jobs but it shouldn't detract from the leadership role of the state in industry," says Jonathan Pincus, a senior economist at the United Nations in Hanoi.
"I don't think it's a model that will take them all the way to being a middle-income country. Either they will slow down or the model will have to change."
Vietnam's current dynamism and potential are indisputable. Its economy is being propelled partly by surging exports to the US, after a trade deal with Washington dramatically lowered US tariffs on Vietnamese imports.
That bilateral deal, reached in 2000 after prolonged negotiations, allowed companies such as Nike, Victoria's Secret and Disney to capitalise on Vietnam's most attractive resource: its abundant supply of diligent, motivated young workers.
American figures show US-Vietnam trade reached $8.1 billion (4.2 billion pounds, 6.2 billion euros) in 2006, out of which $7.2 billion represented Vietnamese exports to the US.
That compares with two-way trade worth just $1.1 billion in 2000, of which Vietnam's exports to the US were less than $400 million.
The export spurt — and the jobs it has generated — is fuelling a consumer boom. Vietnamese are buying television sets, computers and cameras, going on shopping trips to nearby Bangkok and on beach holidays. This consumer revolution is expected to power on as affluence spreads and deepens.
Yet Vietnam is still burdened by the legacies of its old centrally planned, state-controlled economic system. Its vast, sclerotic bureaucracy has ample discretionary power, yet is often reluctant to take big decisions. The media are restricted.
Universities are moribund. The judicial system is opaque and subject to political interference. Corruption is rampant. Even after two decades of reform, the economy remains dominated by large and inefficient state enterprises, which account for 38 per cent of gross domestic product, exert strong anti-competitive pressure and squander scarce state resources.
WTO accession is supposed to help Hanoi wrestle with these problems, committing it to a long-term programme of reform, liberalisation and privatisation that will modernise its economy and government, while creating a level playing field for foreign companies.
But the multinational investors flocking to do business in Vietnam may find the path to profit long and littered with unexpected obstacles, as vested interests use bureaucratic and political tools to defend their turf and resist change.
Politically sensitive
"Everyone sees that foreign direct investment is good, bringing capital and management skills," says Vo Tri Thanh, a trade policy expert at Hanoi's Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM), a government think-tank.
"But some sectors may be more politically sensitive. So it is difficult. Our labour-intensive industries can benefit from integration and can exploit our comparative advantage. But capital-intensive heavy industries — like sugar, cement or paper — can lose their position."
In spite of their WTO commitments, Hanoi's communists are still divided over the extent to which state enterprises should be subjected to the pressures of market competition — let alone be relinquished.
While giving up control of smaller businesses, the government is simultaneously pumping vast sums of money into some state enterprises, hoping to create national champions similar to the South Korean chaebol.
Sectors targeted include insurance, minerals, oil, shipping, telecoms and electricity. Hanoi has set up a state holding company — ostensibly along the lines of Singapore's Temasek — to manage its investments and maximise returns.
Yet economists fret that Hanoi may simply be unable to transform bloated, inefficient and often deeply corrupt state businesses — which have never operated from a profit motive — into truly competitive companies. Instead, the risk is that they will suck up valuable capital that could be used more productively by others.
State-owned banks, which account for about 70 per cent of banking system assets, are already burdened with high levels of bad debt from poorly performing companies.
HSBC economists recently observed that Vietnam was already suffering from declining capital efficiency, the consequence of a poorly managed state investment drive in recent years.
While the state's share of fixed investment has risen to 52 per cent — up from 43 per cent — during the past decade, its share of economic output has fallen slightly, reflecting an inefficient use and allocation of capital.
Corruption is one reason for the poor performance. The government's own CIEM last year estimated that 20 to 40 per cent of all state investment is lost in "leakage and waste".
It is not just heavy industries that have established privileged positions. In recent years, state enterprises — and entities including urban and provincial administrations, the military and government ministries — have expanded into service industries such as telecoms, retail, hotels, resorts and property development.
Many of these operations have murky ownership structures, with some private individuals participating.
But nearly all have politically powerful patrons who may try to protect them as competition intensifies.
Even Vietnam's appeal for labour-intensive, export-oriented industries is threatened by old mindsets. With WTO accession, local garment companies are likely to ramp up production, as are makers of furniture, shoes, computer printers and other manufactured exports.
Intel's plan to build a $1 billion semiconductor assembly and testing plant in Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon, could presage more high-technology investments in the future.
Infrastructure
Severe infrastructure bottlenecks loom, however, as facilities strain under existing demand. Electricity of Vietnam, the power monopoly, estimates a 1,700 mega-watt shortfall next year.
Ports around Ho Chi Minh City, tare already full and new ones are not due to open for three years at the earliest.
While Hanoi has ambitious infrastructural development plans, with a growing role for the private sector, progress is slow.
As causing economic losses to the state is a serious crime — potentially punishable by death — bureaucrats and state company executives are loath to sign off on big deals lest they later be accused of agreeing to unfavourable terms.
Privatisation — or what Vietnam calls equitisation — is the prescribed remedy for both the protectionist impulse and modernising decrepit enterprises.
Yet over the past decade, just 12 per cent of total state enterprise capital — mostly in small companies — has been turned into shares and just half of that has passed into private hands, mostly to managers and employees of the enterprises.
The process is slowed by hesitant decision-making, an insufficient technical capacity to value large state businesses and continuing ideological resistance.
Vietnam is, however, in the throes of an equity market revolution that is changing attitudes. Share values on the young stock exchange rocketed 144 per cent last year - making it one of the world's best performing equity markets — after Merrill Lynch issued a bullish report calling Vietnam a "10-year buy".
While big investment banks rushed to assist foreign clients eager for exposure to one of Asia's fastest-growing economies, the report also spurred heavy local buying.
The market dramatically expanded in size as local companies rushed to list before Hanoi abolished tax breaks for newly listed groups at the end of 2006.
Market capitalisation of the Ho Chi Minh City stock exchange hit $9 billion at the end of 2006, up from just $510 million a year earlier, while the number of listed companies increased to 106 from about 30. December alone saw 49 new listings and a peak daily turnover of $50 billion.
But with precise plans yet to be drawn up, it is unclear whether Hanoi will sell just small minority stakes or allow in foreign strategic partners that can overhaul operations.
Even after share sell-offs, Hanoi may still treat these companies as state property, protecting them from rivals yet meddling in their operations.
"The headline is, ‘They are opening up the state sector'," says Fred Burke, a partner with Baker & McKenzie in Ho Chi Minh City. "The fine print is, ‘Better watch out. The devil is in the detail'."
Ultimately, though, the government's strongest protectionist impulse is to safeguard its monopoly on political power, which means it is determined to keep the economy humming and deliver jobs and rising living standards.
"The key is whether Vietnam seriously sees the commitment to openness as good for Vietnam or bad," says Thanh. "For Asian people, the theory is not important. They will come back and see reality. If things go well, they will support bolder measures. But foreign investors will need to have patience."
The risk is that it may take another hard lesson before Hanoi's Communists truly give up on the last of their Leninist economic ideals.
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