Dr Nguyen Xuan Oanh, the country's top economist and an adviser to the government, outlines the country's massive economic problems when he meets this delegation. There is no monkey business here. We will guarantee foreign investors against nationalisation and unfair competition from the government. You can manufacture anything here, except guns. Vietnam is already showing signs of change.
Officials tell how only three years ago, rice had to be imported.
Now it is a rice exporter. The economy has also been helped by remittances from the thousands of Vietnamese who fled Vietnam and have made good in the United States, Canada and Australia. Some of Saigon's thriving shopkeepers are rich Vietnamese who hid their wealth after 1975 but are now taking advantage of government encouragement of a free-market system. Vietnamese are also hard-working and many hold two jobs. As a visitor, I learnt late that teenage gangs rob foreigners and Vietnamese of their gold and cash.