The economy is almost primitive in its simplicity. Meanwhile the population grows, and natural resources, such as hardwood forests, are plundered. Government manufacturing plants are as antiquated as those in the Soviet Union, which probably served as their model, and bureaucracies squeezed the profit out of any individual entrepreneurships. The ability to apply a socialistic system to the capitalist world, if it can be done, eludes Vietnam s leadership. The country claims to want to do business, but decision-making languishes, or is undone.
Foreign investment is jerked away for short-term gains.
Representatives of hundreds of American companies, wanting to do business in Vietnam, have either returned home in frustration or looked elsewhere. Success stories have been very, very few. Vietnam s 77 million people, all needing jobs and consumer goods, are tempting, but there are as many and more similarly fixed inhabitants of other countries. The Vietnamese aren t entirely isolated. Television programming that originates outside the country makes clear the gap between those who have and those who don t. Foreign-language publications are available.