HAVING IMPRESSED the world by taming the virus last year, Vietnam is now in the middle of its worst outbreak of covid-19 by far. Parts of the country are in strict lockdown and a swathe of factories, from those making shoes for Nike to those producing smartphones for Samsung, have either slowed or shut down, disrupting global supply chains. Yet integration with global manufacturing has helped keep Vietnam’s economy humming during the pandemic. In 2020 GDP rose by 2.9% even as most countries recorded deep recessions. Despite the latest outbreak, this year could see faster growth: the World Bank’s latest forecasts, published on August 24th, expect an expansion of 4.8% in 2021.
This performance hints at the real reason to be impressed by Vietnam. Its openness to trade and investment has made it an important link in supply chains. And that in turn has powered a remarkable and lengthy expansion. Vietnam has been one of the five fastest-growing countries in the world over the past 30 years, beating its neighbours hands down (see chart 1). Its record has been characterised not by the fits and starts of many other frontier markets, but by steady growth. The government is even more ambitious, wanting Vietnam to become a high-income country by 2045, a task that requires growing at 7% a year. What is the secret to Vietnam’s success—and can it be sustained?
Vietnam is often compared to China in the 1990s or early 2000s, and not without reason. Both are communist countries that, shepherded by a one-party political system, turned capitalist and focused on export-led growth. But there are big differences, too. For a start, even describing Vietnam’s economy as export-intensive does not do justice to just how much it sells abroad. Its goods trade exceeds 200% of GDP. Few economies in the world, except the most resource-rich countries or city states dominated by maritime trade, are or have ever been so trade-intensive.
It is not just the level of exports but the nature of the exporters that makes Vietnam different to China. Indeed, its deep connection to global supply chains and high levels of foreign investment makes it seem more like Singapore. Since 1990 Vietnam has received average foreign direct investment inflows worth 6% of GDP each year, more than twice the global level—far more than China or South Korea have ever recorded over a sustained period.
As the rest of East Asia developed and wages there rose, global manufacturers were lured by Vietnam’s low labour costs and stable exchange rate. That fuelled an export boom. In the past decade, exports by domestic firms have risen by 137%, while those by foreign-invested companies have surged by 422% (see chart 2).
But the widening gap between foreign and domestic firms now poses a threat to Vietnam’s expansion. It has become overwhelmingly dependent on investment and exports by foreign companies, while domestic firms have underperformed.
Foreign firms can continue to grow, providing more employment and output. But there are limits to how far they can drive Vietnam’s development. The country will need a productive and efficient services sector. As living standards rise it may become less attractive to foreign manufacturers over time, and workers will need other opportunities.
Part of the drag on domestic enterprise comes from state-owned firms. Their importance to the country’s activity and employment has shrunk (see chart 3). But they still have an outsize effect on the economy through their preferential position in the banking system, which lets them borrow cheaply. Banks make up for that unproductive lending by charging other domestic firms higher rates. Whereas foreign companies can easily access funding overseas, the average interest rate on a medium- and long-term bank loan in Vietnamese dong ran to 10.25% last year. Recent research by academics at the London School of Economics also suggests that productivity gains in the five years after Vietnam joined the WTO in 2007 would have been 40% higher without state-owned firms.
To fire up the private sector, the government wants to nurture the equivalent of South Korea’s chaebol or Japan’s keiretsu, sprawling corporate groups that operate in a variety of sectors. The government is “trying to create national champions,” says Le Hong Hiep, a senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, and a former Vietnamese civil servant.
Vingroup, a dominant conglomerate, is the most obvious candidate. In VinPearl, VinSchool and VinMec, it has operations that spread across tourism, education and health. VinHomes, its property arm, is Vietnam’s largest listed private firm by market capitalisation.
The group’s efforts to break into finished automotive production through VinFast, its carmaker, may be most important for the economic development of a country that is usually known for intermediate manufacturing. In July the company’s Fadil car, which is based on the design for Opel’s Karl make, became Vietnam’s best-selling model, beating Toyota. VinFast has grand ambitions abroad, too. In July it announced that it had opened offices in America and Europe and intended to sell electric vehicles there by March 2022.
Fostering national champions while staying open to foreign investment is not easy, however. VinFast benefits from a bevy of tax reductions, including a large cut in corporation tax for its first 15 years of operation. In August, local state media also reported that the government was considering reinstating a 50% reduction in registration fees for locally built automobiles that expired last year.
But the country’s membership of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, and a range of other trade and investment deals, means that it cannot offer preferential treatment to domestic producers. It must extend support to foreign firms that make cars in Vietnam, too. (By contrast, China’s trade policy, which prefers broad but shallow deals, does not constrain domestic policy in quite the same way.)
Vietnam may also hope to rely on another source of growth. The economic boom has encouraged its enormous diaspora to invest, or even to return home. “There aren’t a lot of economies that are experiencing the sort of thing that Vietnam is,” says Andy Ho of VinaCapital, an investment firm with $3.7bn in assets. His family moved to America in 1977, where he was educated and worked in consulting and finance. He returned to Vietnam with his own family in 2004. “If I were Korean, I might have gone back in the 1980s, if I were Chinese I might have gone back in 2000.” Its successful diaspora makes Vietnam one of the largest recipients of remittances in the world; $17bn flowed in last year, equivalent to 6% of GDP.
The setback from covid-19 aside, it might seem hard not to be rosy about a country that appears to be in the early stages of emulating an East Asian economic miracle. But no country has become rich through remittances alone. As Vietnam develops, sustaining rapid growth from exports of foreign companies will become increasingly difficult, and the tension between staying open to foreign investment and promoting national champions will become more acute. All of that makes reforming the domestic private sector and the financial system paramount. Without it, the government’s lofty goal of getting rich quick may prove beyond its reach.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 200 points in late-morning trading, while U.S. stock markets were also headed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 205.86 points at 24,508.12.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 336.62 points at 42,790.74. The S&P 500 index was up 34.19 points at 5,814.24, while the Nasdaq composite was up 60.27 points at 18.342.32.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.61 cents US compared with 72.71 cents US on Thursday.
The November crude oil contract was down 15 cents at US$75.70 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was down two cents at US$2.65 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was down US$29.60 at US$2,668.90 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents at US$4.47 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.
OTTAWA – The economy added 47,000 jobs in September, while the unemployment rate declined for the first time since January to 6.5 per cent, Statistics Canada reported on Friday.
The agency says youth and women aged 25 to 54 drove employment gains last month, while full-time employment saw its largest gain since May 2022.
The overall job gains followed four consecutive months of little change, the agency said.
The unemployment rate has been steadily climbing over the past year and a half, hitting 6.6 per cent in August.
Inflation that month was two per cent, the lowest level in more than three years as lower gas prices helped it hit the Bank of Canada’s inflation target.
The central bank has cut its key interest rate three times this year, and is widely expected to keep cutting as inflation has subsided and the broader trend points to a weakening in the labour market.
Despite the job gains in September, the employment rate was lower in the month, reflecting continued growth in Canada’s population.
Statistics Canada said since the employment rate saw its most recent peak at 62.4 per cent in January and February 2023, it’s been following a downward trend as population growth has outpaced employment growth.
On a year-over-year basis, employment was up by 1.5 per cent in September, while the population aged 15 and older in the Labour Force Survey grew 3.6 per cent.
The information, culture and recreation industry saw employment rise 2.6 per cent between August and September, after seven months of little change, Statistics Canada said, with the increase concentrated in Quebec.
The wholesale and retail trade industry saw its first increase since January at 0.8 per cent, while employment in professional, scientific and technical services was up 1.1 per cent.
Average hourly wages among employees rose 4.6 per cent year-over-year to $35.59, a slowdown from the five-per-cent increase in August.
The unemployment rate among Black and South Asian Canadians between 25 and 54 rose year-over-year in September and was significantly higher than the unemployment rate for people who were not racialized and not Indigenous.
Black Canadians in that age group saw their unemployment rate rise to 11 per cent last month while for South Asian Canadians it was 7.3 per cent. For non-racialized, non-Indigenous people, it rose to 4.4 per cent.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 11, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was little changed in late-morning trading as the financial sector fell, but energy and base metal stocks moved higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 0.05 of a point at 24,224.95.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 94.31 points at 42,417.69. The S&P 500 index was down 10.91 points at 5,781.13, while the Nasdaq composite was down 29.59 points at 18,262.03.
The Canadian dollar traded for 72.71 cents US compared with 73.05 cents US on Wednesday.
The November crude oil contract was up US$1.69 at US$74.93 per barrel and the November natural gas contract was up a penny at US$2.67 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$14.70 at US$2,640.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up two cents at US$4.42 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2024.
