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16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

When Nguyễn Ánh took power in 1802, after the death of Quang Trung Nguyễn Huệ and the rupture of Tây Sơn Dynasty's military muscles, he employed a number of appropriate economic policies, namely clear stipulation of tax system, tax reduction for regions facing difficulty such as natural catastrophe, low agricultural yield, draught, etc. Minting coins was organized with clear rules and monitored closely by the government. In monetary term, one tael of gold was in exchange of 10 taels of silver. Where appropriate and necessary, the government established new coin-minting mill, ensuring the adequacy of money for trade and economic activity. Apart from silver and gold coins, lower-value coins were also minted by the government, consisting of copper and zinc coins from 1803, viz. his second year as king. The government also stipulated the weight measure systems to facilitate trade. In addition, roads were repaired or built new. Dykes and irrigation systems were renovated and protected to facilitate agricultural production. Rice reserves were built in many towns so that in emergency, the government could supply foods to people in time.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Persistent states and detrimental impacts of feudalist warfares are the main characteristic of this 2,500-year part of Vietnam's premodern history. Stable economic development could hardly be attained even in the 17th century when trades became more active and economic conditions improved briefly in temporary peace. In pecuniary terms, both governments of Đàng Ngoài and Đàng Trong performed poorly, with persistent budget deficit–although not very serious–in mid-17th century (1746-1753). Trades, usually a precursor to any prosperous society, almost disappeared in this period, and reappeared only sporadically. Towards the end of this period, it was fortunate that King Gia Long Nguyễn Ánh now displayed a set of "fairly" efficient economic policies which helped restore the economic conditions in part, although we have not had sufficient statistics to make an appraisal on the actual output improvement under the reign of Gia Long.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

However, after King Gia Long, the Nguyễn Dynasty was not able to hold firm grip of power for long. Military conflicts with French soon turned out escalated wars in all major regions and led to French protectorate agreements, a starting point for the next 80 years of the French colonization. It is not unexpected that no major economic progress was documented for this period.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The French now moved to impose a Western-style administration on their colonial territories and to open them to economic exploitation. Under Gov. Gen. Paul Doumer, who arrived in 1897, French rule was imposed directly at all levels of administration, leaving the Vietnamese bureaucracy without any real power. Even Vietnamese emperors were deposed at will and replaced by others willing to serve the French. All important positions within the bureaucracy were staffed with officials imported from France; even in the 1930s, after several periods of reforms and concessions to local nationalist sentiment, Vietnamese officials were employed only in minor positions and at very low salaries, and the country was still administered along the lines laid down by Doumer.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Doumer's economic and social policies also determined, for the entire period of French rule, the development of French Indochina, as the colony became known in the 20th century. French Indochina was designated as a "colonie d'exploitation" (colony of economic interests) by the French government.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The railroads, highways, harbours, bridges, canals, and other public works built by the French were almost all started under Doumer, whose aim was a rapid and systematic exploitation of Indochina's potential wealth for the benefit of France; Vietnam was to become a source of raw materials and a market for tariff-protected goods produced by French industries. Funding for the colonial government came by means of taxes on locals and the French government established a near monopoly on the trade of opium, salt and rice alcohol. The trade of those three products formed about 44% of the colonial government's budget in 1920 but declined to 20% by 1930 as the colony began to economically diversify.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The colony's principal bank was the Banque de l'Indochine, established in 1875 and was responsible for minting the colony's currency, the Indochinese piastre. Indochina was the second most invested-in French colony by 1940 after Algeria, with investments totaling up to 6.7 million francs.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The exploitation of natural resources for direct export was the chief purpose of all French investments, with rice, coal, rare minerals, and later also rubber as the main products. Doumer and his successors up to the eve of World War II were not interested in promoting industry there, the development of which was limited to the production of goods for immediate local consumption. Among these enterprises—located chiefly in Saigon, Hanoi, and Haiphong (the outport for Hanoi)—were breweries, distilleries, small sugar refineries, rice and paper mills, and glass and cement factories. The greatest industrial establishment was a textile factory at Nam Dinh, which employed more than 5,000 workers. The total number of workers employed by all industries and mines in Vietnam was some 100,000 in 1930.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

At the turn of the 20th century, the growing automobile industry in France resulted in the growth of the rubber industry in French Indochina, and plantations were built throughout the colony, especially in Annam and Cochinchina. France soon became a leading producer of rubber through its Indochina colony and Indochinese rubber became prized in the industrialized world. The success of rubber plantations in French Indochina resulted in an increase in investment in the colony by various firms such as Michelin. With the growing number of investments in the colony's mines and rubber, tea and coffee plantations, French Indochina began to industrialize as factories opened in the colony. These new factories produced textiles, cigarettes, beer and cement which were then exported throughout the French Empire.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Because the aim of all investments was not the systematic economic development of the colony but the attainment of immediate high returns for investors, only a small fraction of the profits was reinvested.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Whatever economic progress Vietnam made under the French after 1900 benefited only the French and the small class of wealthy Vietnamese created by the colonial regime. The masses of the Vietnamese people were deprived of such benefits by the social policies inaugurated by Doumer and maintained even by his more liberal successors, such as Paul Beau (1902–07), Albert Sarraut (1911–14 and 1917–19), and Alexandre Varenne (1925–28). Through the construction of irrigation works, chiefly in the Mekong delta, the area of land devoted to rice cultivation quadrupled between 1880 and 1930. During the same period, however, the individual peasant's rice consumption decreased without the substitution of other foods. The new lands were not distributed among the landless and the peasants but were sold to the highest bidder or given away at nominal prices to Vietnamese collaborators and French speculators. These policies created a new class of Vietnamese landlords and a class of landless tenants who worked the fields of the landlords for rents of up to 60 percent of the crop, which was sold by the landlords at the Saigon export market. The mounting export figures for rice resulted not only from the increase in cultivable land but also from the growing exploitation of the peasantry.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The peasants who owned their land were rarely better off than the landless tenants. The peasants’ share of the price of rice sold at the Saigon export market was less than 25 percent. Peasants continually lost their land to the large owners because they were unable to repay loans given them by the landlords and other moneylenders at exorbitant interest rates. As a result, the large landowners of Cochinchina (less than 3 percent of the total number of landowners) owned 45 percent of the land, while the small peasants (who accounted for about 70 percent of the owners) owned only about 15 percent of the land. The number of landless families in Vietnam before World War II was estimated at half of the population.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The peasants’ share of the crop—after the landlords, the moneylenders, and the middlemen (mostly Chinese) between producer and exporter had taken their share—was still more drastically reduced by the direct and indirect taxes the French had imposed to finance their ambitious program of public works. Other ways of making the Vietnamese pay for the projects undertaken for the benefit of the French were the recruitment of forced labour for public works and the absence of any protection against exploitation in the mines and rubber plantations, although the scandalous working conditions, the low salaries, and the lack of medical care were frequently attacked in the French Chamber of Deputies in Paris. The mild social legislation decreed in the late 1920s was never adequately enforced.

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Economic history of Vietnam

Apologists for the colonial regime claimed that French rule led to vast improvements in medical care, education, transport, and communications. The statistics kept by the French, however, appear to cast doubt on such assertions. In 1939, for example, no more than 15 percent of all school-age children received any kind of schooling, and about 80 percent of the population was illiterate, in contrast to precolonial times when the majority of the people possessed some degree of literacy. With its more than 20 million inhabitants in 1939, Vietnam had but one university, with fewer than 700 students. Only a small number of Vietnamese children were admitted to the lycées (secondary schools) for the children of the French. Medical care was well organized for the French in the cities, but in 1939 there were only 2 physicians for every 100,000 Vietnamese, compared with 76 per 100,000 in Japan and 25 per 100,000 in the Philippines.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Two other aspects of French colonial policy are significant when considering the attitude of the Vietnamese people, especially their educated minority, toward the colonial regime: one was the absence of any kind of civil liberties for the native population, and the other was the exclusion of the Vietnamese from the modern sector of the economy, especially industry and trade. Not only were rubber plantations, mines, and industrial enterprises in foreign hands—French, where the business was substantial, and Chinese at the lower levels—but all other business was as well, from local trade to the great export-import houses. The social consequence of this policy was that, apart from the landlords, no property-owning indigenous middle class developed in colonial Vietnam. Thus, capitalism appeared to the Vietnamese to be a part of foreign rule; this view, together with the lack of any Vietnamese participation in government, profoundly influenced the nature and orientation of the national resistance movements.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

When the North and South were divided politically in 1954, they also adopted different economic ideologies, one communist and one capitalist. In the North, the communist regime's First Five-Year Plan (1961–65) gave priority to heavy industry, but priority subsequently shifted to agriculture and light industry. All private enterprise and private ownership was prohibited.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

During the 1954-75 Vietnam War, United States air strikes in the North, beginning in early 1965, slowed large-scale construction considerably as laborers were diverted to repairing bomb damage. By the end of 1966, serious strains developed in the North's economy as a result of war conditions. Interruptions in electric power, the destruction of petroleum storage facilities, industrial and manufacturing facilities, and labor shortages led to a slowdown in industrial and agricultural activity. The disruption of transportation routes by U.S. bombing further slowed distribution of raw materials and consumer goods. Hanoi reported that in the North, all 6 industrial cities, 28 out of 30 provincial towns, 96 out of 116 district towns, and 4,000 out of 5,788 communes were either severely damaged or destroyed. All power stations, 1,600 hydraulics works, 6 railway lines, all roads, bridges, and sea and inland ports were seriously damaged or destroyed. In addition, 400,000 cattle were killed, and several thousand square kilometres of farmland were damaged. The Northern economy conducted trade almost exclusively with the USSR and its Eastern Bloc states and communist China, receiving substantial financial, material, and technical aid from the USSR and China to support the Northern economy, infrastructure and their war effort.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Meanwhile, South Vietnam's free market economy conducted extensive trade with other anti-communist or non-communist countries, such as the US, Canada, France, West Germany, Japan and Thailand. The Southern economy between 1954 and 1975 became increasingly dependent on foreign aid, particularly in the late 60s until the Fall of Saigon. The United States, the foremost donor, helped finance the development of the military and the construction of roads, bridges, airfields and ports; supported the currency; and met the large deficit in the balance of payments. Destruction attributed to the Vietnam War was considerable, especially due to very frequent Viet Cong rocket attacks and bombings of residential and commercial areas, industrial facilities, roads, bridges, rail-lines, sea and airports; widespread US aerial bombing raids on suspected communist hideouts, and intra-city fighting such as during the 1968 Tet Offensive. As a result, much financial resources and the labour force was diverted for reconstruction. Economic activity in less-populated areas of South Vietnam was limited in part due to wartime destruction and large numbers of civilians fleeing from war zones and Viet Cong-held areas, atop of increased inaccessibility between many of these rural areas across the Mekong Delta, Central Highlands and inland Central Vietnam with urban areas along the coast, resultant from damaged or destroyed transportation infrastructure by the Viet Cong or Allied Forces and/or by the Viet Cong forcibly restricting flow of people in and out of rural areas they held. A 2017 study in the journal "Diplomatic History" found that South Vietnamese economic planners sought to model the South Vietnamese economy on Taiwan and South Korea, which were perceived as successful examples of how to modernize developing economies.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

For Vietnam as a whole, the war resulted in some 3 million military and civilian deaths, 362,000 invalids, 1 million widows, and 800,000 orphans. The country sustained a further loss in human capital through the exodus of political refugees from Vietnam after the communist victory in the South. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, as of October 1982 approximately 1 million people had fled Vietnam. Among them were tens of thousands of professionals, intellectuals, technicians, and skilled workers.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The Vietnamese economy is shaped primarily by the VCP through the plenary sessions of the Central Committee and national congresses. The party plays a leading role in establishing the foundations and principles of communism, mapping strategies for economic development, setting growth targets, and launching reforms.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Planning is a key characteristic of centralized, communist economies, and one plan established for the entire country normally contains detailed economic development guidelines for all its regions. According to Vietnamese economist Vo Nhan Tri, Vietnam's post-reunification economy was in a "period of transition to socialism." The process was described as consisting of three phases. The first phase, from 1976 through 1980, incorporated the Second Five-Year Plan (1976–80)--the First Five Year Plan (1960–65) applied to North Vietnam only. The second phase, called "socialist industrialization", was divided into two stages: from 1981 through 1990 and from 1991 through 2005. The third phase, covering the years 2006 through 2010, was to be time allotted to "perfect" the transition.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The party's goal was to unify the economic system of the entire country under communism. Steps were taken to implement this goal at the long-delayed Fourth National Party Congress, convened in December 1976, when the party adopted the Second Five-Year Plan and defined both its "line of socialist revolution" and its "line of building a socialist economy." The next two congresses, held in March 1982 and December 1986, respectively, reiterated this long-term communist objective and approved the five-year plans designed to guide the development of the Vietnamese economy at each specific stage of the communist revolution.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

However, since reunification in 1975, the economy of Vietnam has been plagued by enormous difficulties in production, imbalances in supply and demand, inefficiencies in distribution and circulation, soaring inflation rates, rising debt problems, governmental corruption and illegal asset confiscations by local authorities. Vietnam is one of the few countries in modern history to experience a sharp economic deterioration in a postwar reconstruction period. Its peacetime economy is one of the poorest in the world and has shown a negative to very slow growth in total national output as well as in agricultural and industrial production. Vietnam's gross domestic product (GDP) in 1984 was valued at US$18.1 billion with a per capita income estimated to be between US$200 and US$300 per year. Reasons for this mediocre economic performance have included adverse climatic conditions that afflicted agricultural crops, bureaucratic mismanagement, elimination of private ownership, extinction of entrepreneurial and professional classes in the South, and military occupation of Cambodia (which resulted in a cutoff of much-needed international aid for reconstruction).

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The optimism and impatience of Vietnam's leaders were evident in the Second Five-Year Plan. The plan set extraordinarily high goals for the average annual growth rates for industry (16 to 18 percent), agriculture (8 to 10 percent), and national income (13 to 14 percent). It also gave priority to reconstruction and new construction while attempting to develop agricultural resources, to integrate the North and the South, and to proceed with communization.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Twenty years were allowed to construct the material and technical bases of communism. In the South, material construction and systemic transformation were to be combined in order to hasten economic integration with the North. It was considered critical for the VCP to improve and extend its involvement in economic affairs so that it could guide this process. Development plans were to focus equally on agriculture and industry, while initial investment was to favour projects that developed both sectors of the economy. Thus, for example, heavy industry was intended to serve agriculture on the premise that a rapid increase in agricultural production would in turn fund further industrial growth. With this strategy, Vietnamese leaders claimed that the country could bypass the capitalist industrialization stage necessary to prepare for communism.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Vietnam was incapable, however, of undertaking such an ambitious program on its own and solicited financial support for its Second Five-Year Plan from Western nations, international organizations, and communist allies. Although the amount of economic aid requested is not known, some idea of the assistance level envisioned by Hanoi can be obtained from available financial data. The Vietnamese government budget for 1976 amounted to US$2.5 billion, while investments amounting to US$7.5 billion were planned for the period between 1976 and 1980.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The economic aid tendered to Hanoi was substantial, but it still fell short of requirements. The Soviet Union, China, and Eastern Europe offered assistance that was probably worth US$3 billion to US$4 billion, and countries of the Western economic community pledged roughly US$1 billion to US$1.5 billion.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

By 1979 it was clear that the Second Five-Year Plan had failed to reduce the serious problems facing the newly unified economy. Vietnam's economy remained dominated by small-scale production, low labour productivity, unemployment, material and technological shortfalls, and insufficient food and consumer goods.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

To address these problems, at its Fifth National Party Congress held in March 1982, the VCP approved resolutions on "orientations, tasks and objectives of economic and social development for 1981-85 and the 1980s." The resolutions established economic goals and in effect constituted Vietnam's Third Five-Year Plan (1981–85). Because of the failure of the Second Five-Year Plan, however, the Vietnamese leadership proceeded cautiously, presenting the plan one year at a time. The plan as a whole was neither drawn up in final form nor presented to the National Assembly for adoption.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The economic policies set forth in 1982 resulted from a compromise between ideological and pragmatic elements within the party leadership. The question of whether or not to preserve private capitalist activities in the South was addressed, as was the issue of the pace of the South's communist transformation. The policies arrived at called for the temporary retention of private capitalist activities in order to spur economic growth and the completion, more or less, of a communist transformation in the South by the mid-1980s.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The plan's highest priority, however, was to develop agriculture by integrating the collective and individual sectors into an overall system emphasizing intensive cultivation and crop specialization and by employing science and technology. Economic policy encouraged the development of the family economy; that is, the peasants' personal use of economic resources, including land, not being used by the cooperative. Through use of an end-product contract system introduced by the plan, peasant households were permitted to sign contracts with the collective to farm land owned by the collective. The households then assumed responsibility for production on the plots. If production fell short of assigned quotas, the households were to be required to make up the deficit the following year. If a surplus was produced, the households were to be allowed to keep it, sell it on the free market, or sell it to the state for a "negotiated price." In 1983 the family economy reportedly supplied 50 to 60 percent of the peasants' total income and 30 to 50 percent of their foodstuffs.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Free enterprise was sanctioned, thus bringing to an end the nationalization of small enterprises and reversing former policies that had sought the complete and immediate communization of the South. The new policy especially benefited peasants (including the overwhelming majority of peasants in the South) who had refused to join cooperatives, small producers, small traders, and family businesses.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The effort to reduce the capitalist sector in the South nevertheless continued. Late in 1983, a number of import-export firms that had been created in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) to spur the development of the export market were integrated into a single enterprise regulated by the state. At the same time, the pace of collectivization in the countryside was accelerated under the plan. By the end of 1985, Hanoi reported that 72 percent of the total number of peasant households in the South were enrolled in some form of cooperative organization.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Despite the plan's emphasis on agricultural development, the industrial sector received a larger share of state investment during the first two years. In 1982, for example, the approximate proportion was 53 percent for industry compared with 18 percent for agriculture. Limiting state investment in agriculture, however, did not appear to affect total food production, which increased 19.5 percent from 1980 to 1984.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The plan also stressed the development of small-scale industry to meet Vietnam's material needs, create goods for export, and lay the foundation for the development of heavy industry. In the South, this entailed transforming some private enterprises into "state-private joint enterprises" and reorganizing some small-scale industries into cooperatives. In other cases, however, individual ownership was maintained. Investment in light industry actually decreased by 48 percent while investment in heavy industry increased by 17 percent during the first two years of the plan. Nonetheless, the increase in light-industry production outpaced that of heavy industry by 33 percent to 28 percent during the same two-year period.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The July 1984 Sixth Plenum (Fifth Congress) of the VCP Central Committee recognized that private sector domination of wholesale and retail trade in the South could not be eliminated until the state was capable of assuming responsibility for trade. Proposals therefore were made to decentralize planning procedures and improve the managerial skills of government and party officials.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

These plans were subsequently advanced at the Central Committee's Eighth Plenum (Fifth Congress).In June 1985. Acting to disperse economic decision making, the plenum resolved to grant production autonomy at the factory and individual farm levels. The plenum also sought to reduce government expenditures by ending state subsidies on food and certain consumer goods for state employees. It further determined that all relevant costs to the national government needed to be accounted for in determining production costs and that the state should cease compensating for losses incurred by state enterprises. To implement these resolutions, monetary organizations were required to shift to modern economic accounting. The government created a new dong in September 1985, and set maximum quotas for the amount permitted to be exchanged in bank notes. The dong also was officially devalued.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

In 1986 Vietnam launched a political and economic innovation campaign (Doi Moi) that introduced reforms intended to facilitate the transition from a centralized economy to a "socialist-oriented market economy." Doi Moi combined government planning with free-market incentives. The program abolished agricultural collectives, removed price controls on agricultural goods, and enabled farmers to sell their goods in the marketplace. It encouraged the establishment of private businesses and foreign investment, including foreign-owned enterprises. It's important to note that Vietnam still uses five-year plans.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

By the late 1990s, the success of the business and agricultural reforms ushered in under Doi Moi was evident. More than 30,000 private businesses had been created, and the economy was growing at an annual rate of more than 7 percent. From the early 1990s to 2005, poverty declined from about 50 percent to 29 percent of the population. However, progress varied geographically, with most prosperity concentrated in urban areas, particularly in and around Ho Chi Minh City. In general, rural areas also made progress, as rural households living in poverty declined from 66 percent of the total in 1993 to 36 percent in 2002. By contrast, concentrations of poverty remained in certain rural areas, particularly the northwest, north-central coast, and central highlands.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Government control of the economy and a nonconvertible currency have protected Vietnam from what could have been a more severe impact resulting from the East Asian financial crisis in 1997. Nonetheless, the crisis, coupled with the loss of momentum as the first round of economic reforms ran its course, has exposed serious structural inefficiencies in Vietnam's economy. Vietnam's economic stance following the East Asian recession has been a cautious one, emphasizing macroeconomic stability rather than growth. While the country has shifted toward a more market-oriented economy, the Vietnamese government still continues to hold a tight rein over major sectors of the economy, such as the banking system, state-owned enterprises, and areas of foreign trade. GDP growth fell to 6% in 1998 and 5% in 1999.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

The July 13, 2000, signing of the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) between the United States and Vietnam was a significant milestone for Vietnam's economy. The BTA provided for Normal Trade Relations (NTR) status of Vietnamese goods in the U.S. market. Access to the U.S. market will allow Vietnam to hasten its transformation into a manufacturing-based, export-oriented economy. It would also concomitantly attract foreign investment to Vietnam, not only from the U.S., but also from Europe, Asia, and other regions.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

In 2001 the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) approved a 10-year economic plan that enhanced the role of the private sector while reaffirming the primacy of the state. In 2003 the private sector accounted for more than one-quarter of all industrial output, and the private sector's contribution was expanding more rapidly than the public sector's (18.7 percent versus 12.4 percent growth from 2002 to 2003). Growth then rose to 6% to 7% in 2000-02 even against the background of global recession, making it the world's second fastest-growing economy. Simultaneously, investment grew threefold and domestic savings quintupled.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

In 2003 the private sector accounted for more than one-quarter of all industrial output. Despite these signs of progress, the World Economic Forum's 2005 Global Competitiveness Report, which reflects the subjective judgments of the business community, ranked Vietnam eighty-first in growth competitiveness in the world (down from sixtieth place in 2003) and eightieth in business competitiveness (down from fiftieth place in 2003), well behind its model China, which ranked forty-ninth and fifty-seventh in these respective categories. Vietnam's sharp deterioration in the rankings from 2003 to 2005 was attributable in part to negative perceptions of the effectiveness of government institutions. Official corruption is endemic despite efforts to curb it. Vietnam also lags behind China in terms of property rights, the efficient regulation of markets, and labor and financial market reforms. State-owned banks that are poorly managed and suffer from non-performing loans still dominate the financial sector.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Vietnam had an average growth in GDP of 7.1% per year from 2000 to 2004. The GDP growth was 8.4% in 2005, the second largest growth in Asia, trailing only China's. Government figures of GDP growth in 2006, was 8.17%. According to Vietnam's Minister of Planning and Investment, the government targets a GDP growth of around 8.5% for 2007.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

On January 11, 2007, Vietnam became WTO's 150th member, after 11 years of preparation, including 8 years of negotiation. Vietnam's access to WTO should provide an important boost to Vietnam's economy and should help to ensure the continuation of liberalizing reforms and create options for trade expansion. However, WTO accession also brings serious challenges, requiring Vietnam's economic sectors to open the door to increased foreign competition.

16579214

Economic history of Vietnam

Although Vietnam's economy, which continues to expand at an annual rate in excess of 7 percent, is one of the fastest-growing in the world, the economy is growing from an extremely low base, reflecting the crippling effect of the Second Indochina War (1954–75) and repressive economic measures introduced in its aftermath. Whether rapid economic growth is sustainable is open to debate. The government may not be able to follow through with plans to scale back trade restrictions and reform state-owned enterprises. Reducing trade restrictions and improving transparency are keys to gaining full membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO), as hoped by mid-2006. The government plans to reform the state-owned sector by partially privatizing thousands of state-owned enterprises, including all five state-owned commercial banks.

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Economic history of Vietnam

This chart shows the GDP of Vietnam at constant prices (Source: IMF)

16584608

Hood scoop

A bonnet scoop or hood scoop, sometimes called bonnet airdam and air dam, is an upraised component on the hood of a motor vehicle that either allows a flow of air to directly enter the engine compartment, or appears to do so. It has only one opening and is closed on all other sides. Its main function is to allow a direct flow of air to the engine, hence the need for it to be upraised so as to effectively channel air to the engine compartment. It may be closed, and thus purely decorative, or serve to enhance performance in several possible ways.

16584608

Hood scoop

In most modern vehicles, internal combustion engines "breathe" under-hood air or air ducted from under the front bumper through plastic and rubber tubing. The high operating temperatures in the engine compartment result in intake air that is 28°C (82°F) or warmer than the ambient temperature, and consequently less dense. A hood scoop can provide the engine with cooler, denser outside air, increasing power.

16584608

Hood scoop

At higher road speeds, a properly designed hood scoop known as ram-air intake can increase the speed and pressure with which air enters the engine's intake, creating a resonance supercharging effect. Such effects are typically only felt at very high speeds, making ram air primarily useful for racing, not street performance.

16584608

Hood scoop

Pontiac used the trade name Ram Air to describe its engines equipped with functional scoops. Despite the name, most of these systems only provided cool air, with little or no supercharging effect.

16584608

Hood scoop

Some engines with turbochargers or superchargers are also equipped with top mounted intercoolers to reduce the temperature and increase the density of the high-pressure air produced by the compressor. Channeling outside air to the intercooler (which is a heat exchanger similar to a radiator) increases its effectiveness, providing a significant improvement in power.

16584608

Hood scoop

To be effective, a functional scoop must be located at a high-pressure area on the hood. For that reason, some functional scoops are located at the rear of the hood, near the vehicle's cowl, where the curvature of the windshield creates such a high-pressure zone, and may be placed so that their opening faces the windshield (a reversed scoop).

16584608

Hood scoop

The scoop will be most effective if it is either mounted high enough to clear the boundary layer (the slow-moving air that clings to the surface of a moving object) or if it is a NACA duct, mounted below the surface and designed to draw the faster moving air outside of the boundary layer into the duct. A shallow scoop that is "not" a NACA duct may not admit a useful amount of air even if it is open.

16584608

Hood scoop

Under the hood, an effective scoop must funnel air into the engine's intake in as short and direct a path as possible, preferably through a tube or channel that is insulated against underhood heat.

16584608

Hood scoop

A scoop may be part of the hood, or may be part of the engine's air cleaner assembly, protruding through a hole cut into the bonnet. Such a scoop is called a shaker hood, because the scoop vibrates noticeably when the engine is running, especially under power.

16584608

Hood scoop

A hood scoop/top mounted intercooler can be beneficial, especially during an off-road rally race. Rocks and debris can be kicked up by a car in front, and those objects can damage a front-mounted intercooler. However, rock guards can be installed to prevent this problem.

16486586

Bulgaria–Russia relations

Bulgaria–Russia relations (, ) are the diplomatic relations between the countries of Bulgaria and Russia.

16486586

Bulgaria–Russia relations

Bulgaria has an embassy in Moscow and three consulates general (in Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg). Russia has an embassy in Sofia and two consulates general (in Ruse and Varna).

16486586

Bulgaria–Russia relations

Both countries are Slavic nations, and are bound together by a common Orthodox Christian culture. Since 20th century however, relations turned tense when Bulgaria sided with Germany in both two World Wars against Russia. After 1945, Bulgaria was a Soviet ally during the Cold War, and maintained good relationships with Russia until the Revolutions of 1989. However, following woes over energy projects included the cancelled South Stream pipeline and frozen Belene Nuclear Power Plant project, as well as the 2014 annexation of Crimea by Russia, relations deteriorated.

16486586

Bulgaria–Russia relations

Official relations began on July 7, 1879.

16486586

Bulgaria–Russia relations

The citizens of modern-day Russia and Bulgaria have been in contact for centuries. The Cyrillic alphabet originated in the 9th century First Bulgarian Empire and was later accepted by the Orthodox Slavic countries as their standard alphabet. Both nations had the tradition of calling monarchs Tsars"," a Slavic word for Emperor that also originated in Bulgaria"." Russia helped Bulgaria gain sovereignty from the Ottoman Empire. The Bulgarians then built an Orthodox church in Sofia named after the Russian saint Alexander Nevsky in honor of the Russian soldiers who helped Bulgaria during that war.

16486586

Bulgaria–Russia relations

Relations between two started to worsen when Russia refused to diplomatically support Bulgaria in the Bulgarian unification and the following Serbo-Bulgarian War. This had a serious impact on Bulgarian–Russian relations, which continues to even modern day.

16486586

Bulgaria–Russia relations

Bulgaria and Russia's relations continued to fall as Bulgaria accused Russia of meddling into its internal affairs, a fact that contributed to growing alliance between Tsarist Russia and Serbia. This led to antagonism between Bulgaria and Russia even when Russia motivated Bulgaria to form an alliance with Montenegro, Serbia and Greece to drive the Austrians away. When Bulgaria got a chance to occupy Constantinople during the First Balkan War against the Ottomans, Russia opposed Bulgarian military actions. Russia also refused to condemn Serbia and Greece for attacking Bulgaria in the consequent war. Tensions between Bulgaria and Russia eventually erupted in the World War I when Bulgaria sided with German Empire over the promise to regain its lost soil. Eventually, Bulgaria and Russia suffered heavy military losses for their wars, and Bulgarian–Russian relations severed. It was not until 1930s that saw Russia, as Soviet Union, established relations with Bulgaria.

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Bulgaria–Russia relations

In World War II, Bulgaria started as a member of the Axis powers, but when the Soviets invaded the Balkans, Bulgaria joined the Soviet side. The Soviet Red Army backed the Bulgarian coup d'état of 1944 which brought communists to power. From 1945 to 1948, the country became entrenched within the Soviet sphere of influence under the control of the Bulgarian Communist Party (BCP) which oversaw a program of Stalinization in the late 1940s and 1950s, and joined the Warsaw Pact in 1955. Political repression was widespread. Bulgaria became highly dependent on Soviet patronage. Soviet technical and financial aid enabled it to rapidly industrialize. The USSR provided Bulgaria with energy and a market for its goods. Bulgaria also received large-scale military aid from the Soviet Union, worth USD $16.7 billion between 1946 and 1990. Bulgaria remained part of the Soviet bloc until 1989, when the BCP began to drift away from the USSR. The first multi-party elections were held in 1990 and the BCP lost power in elections the following year.

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Bulgaria–Russia relations

Georgi Ivanov, a military officer from Bulgaria became the first Bulgarian to reach outer space when he boarded Soyuz 33 along with Soviet cosmonaut Nikolai Rukavishnikov. Bulgarian scientists were involved in preparations for the flight. During this era, Bulgaria was governed by Todor Zhivkov, a close friend of Nikita Khrushchev.

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Bulgaria–Russia relations

After the fall of communism in 1989, Bulgaria–Russia relations entered a new stage. Relations were affected by the political orientation of the party in power. The left were more supportive of close relations than the right. Russian attempts to interfere continued after the People's Republic of Bulgaria and Soviet Union collapsed. That led to the expulsion of two Russian diplomats during the UDF ("СДС") government in March 2001 as Ivan Kostov, then Prime Minister of Bulgaria, was made aware of attempts to remove the Bulgarian government by Russian agents in the Bulgarian government, only five months before the legitimate end of the government term. Relations between the two remained moderate despite Bulgaria's integration with Western Europe and the United States. Bulgaria joined NATO in 2004 and the European Union in 2007.

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Bulgaria–Russia relations

A later President, Georgi Parvanov of the BSP party, sought energy cooperation in a programme that he termed a 'Grand Slam'. Although he managed to obtain two mandates, he largely lacked public support. Most agreements were later revised, with successful projects given a chance, while unsuccessful efforts were stopped, such as NPP Belene, which was halted due to the unprofitable nature of the project for the Bulgarian side. This was opposed by former Prime Minister and current PES leader Sergei Stanishev, who had promised to replace the right wing government of Boyko Borisov.

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Bulgaria–Russia relations

Bulgarians inhabit certain areas of Russia.

16359952

2000–01 Euroleague

The 2000–01 Euroleague was the inaugural basketball season of the EuroLeague, under the newly formed Euroleague Basketball Company's authority, and it was the 44th season of the premier competition for European men's professional basketball clubs overall. It started on October 16, 2000, with a regular season game between hosts Real Madrid Teka and Olympiacos, which was held at the Raimundo Saporta Pavilion, in Madrid, Spain, and it ended with the last championship finals game on May 10, 2001, which was held at the PalaMalaguti arena, in Bologna, Italy.

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2000–01 Euroleague

This season did not feature all of the top-tier level European club basketball teams, as some of them opted to compete in the 2000–01 FIBA SuproLeague competition instead, after the row erupted between the previous EuroLeague governing body, FIBA, and the newly established Euroleague Basketball Company.

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2000–01 Euroleague

A total of 24 teams competed for the EuroLeague title, which was in the end won by Kinder Bologna. Dejan Tomašević was the EuroLeague Regular season MVP, and Manu Ginóbili was the EuroLeague Finals MVP.

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2000–01 Euroleague

The EuroLeague (or historically called, the "FIBA European Champions' Cup") was originally established by FIBA, and it operated under its umbrella from 1958, until the summer of 2000, concluding with the 1999–2000 season. That was when Euroleague Basketball Company was created.

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2000–01 Euroleague

Because FIBA had never trademarked the "EuroLeague" name, and Euroleague Basketball simply used it without any legal ramifications, because FIBA had no legal recourse to prevent it, so they had to find a new name for their league. Thus, the following 2000–01 season started with 2 separate top European professional club basketball competitions: the FIBA SuproLeague (previously known as the FIBA EuroLeague) and the brand new 2000–01 Euroleague season.

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2000–01 Euroleague

The rift in European professional club basketball initially showed no signs of letting up. Top clubs were also split between the two leagues: Panathinaikos, Maccabi Elite Tel Aviv, CSKA Moscow, and Efes Pilsen stayed with FIBA, while Olympiacos, Kinder Bologna, Real Madrid, FC Barcelona, Tau Cerámica, and Benetton Treviso joined Euroleague Basketball.

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2000–01 Euroleague

A total of 24 teams from 14 countries participate in the competition.

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2000–01 Euroleague

The table below shows the default access list.

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2000–01 Euroleague

The competition culminated in a best 3 out of 5 playoff series.

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2000–01 Euroleague

The labels in the parentheses show how each team qualified for the place of its starting round

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2000–01 Euroleague

The first phase was a regular season, in which the competing teams were drawn into four groups, each containing six teams. Each team played every other team in its group at home and away, resulting in 10 games for each team in the first stage. The top 4 teams in each group advanced to the next round, The Top 16. The complete list of tiebreakers is provided in the lead-in to the Regular Season results.

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2000–01 Euroleague

If one or more clubs were level on won-lost record, tiebreakers were applied in the following order:

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2000–01 Euroleague

In a best-of-three series the remaining 16 teams were placed against each other. The games were held between the 31st of January and the 14th of February, 2001, with the top 8 teams advancing to the Playoffs.

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2000–01 Euroleague

In a best-of-three series the remaining eight teams were placed against each other. The games were held between 21 February and 7 March 2001, with the top 4 teams advancing to the semifinals.

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2000–01 Euroleague

In a best-of-five series the remaining four teams were placed against each other. The games were held between the 27th of March and the 7th of April, 2001.

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2000–01 Euroleague

The culminating stage of the Euroleague season, the two remaining teams that won the semifinal series played each other in a best-of-five series.

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2000–01 Euroleague

In May 2001, Europe had two continental champions, Maccabi Tel Aviv of the FIBA SuproLeague and Kinder Bologna of Euroleague Basketball Company's EuroLeague. The leaders of both organizations realized the need to come up with a new single competition. Negotiating from the position of strength, Euroleague Basketball Company dictated proceedings, and FIBA essentially had no choice but to agree to their terms. As a result, the EuroLeague was fully integrated under Euroleague Basketball Company's umbrella, and teams that competed in the FIBA SuproLeague during the 2000–01 season joined it as well. It is today officially admitted that European basketball had two champions that year, Maccabi of the FIBA SuproLeague and Kinder Bologna of the Euroleague Basketball Company's EuroLeague.

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2000–01 Euroleague

A year later, Euroleague Basketball Company and FIBA decided that Euroleague Basketball's EuroLeague competition would be the main basketball tournament on the continent, to be played between the top level teams of Europe. FIBA Europe would also organize a European league for third-tier level teams, known as the FIBA Europe League competition, while Euroleague Basketball would also organize its own second-tier level league, combining FIBA's long-time Korać Cup and Saporta Cup competitions into one new competition, the EuroCup. In 2005, Euroleague Basketball and FIBA decided to cooperate with each other, and did so jointly until 2016.

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2000–01 Euroleague

In essence, the authority in European professional basketball was divided over club-country lines. FIBA stayed in charge of national team competitions (like the FIBA EuroBasket, the FIBA World Cup, and the Summer Olympics), while Euroleague Basketball took over the European professional club competitions. From that point on, FIBA's Korać Cup and Saporta Cup competitions lasted only one more season before folding, which was when Euroleague Basketball launched the EuroCup.

16396165

Online outsourcing

Online outsourcing is the business process of contracting third-party providers (often overseas) to supply products or services which are delivered and paid for via the internet.

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Online outsourcing

Online outsourcing is the internet-based version of outsourcing. This process is when one department, or indeed a whole area of work, transfers tasks and projects to a third party company.

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Online outsourcing

Examples of such tasks could be programming, web development and web design, multi-media production, logo design or search engine optimization not forgetting services like translations, research and editorial work. In this case, online platforms can serve to simplify the process of attaining and assigning projects.

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Online outsourcing

With offshoring, a variant of outsourcing, respective tasks can be situated in another country. This could be both business tasks or indeed business processes.

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Online outsourcing

With nearshoring, offshoring also has its own variant. While the former relocates tasks to a country usually very far afield on another continent, the latter is, as the name suggests, relocation closer to home.

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Online outsourcing

Homeshoring, as a variant of outsourcing, describes the location of third party services which are not undertaken by companies but by individuals working from home. This form of working is also known as Home-Office or often telecommuting.

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Online outsourcing

Through outsourcing a company can relieve itself of secondary tasks and concentrate on core issues, thus improving its efficiency. Or as Peter Drucker expressed it, "Do what you can do best and Outsource the rest."

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Online outsourcing

According to Deloitte’s research, the primary reason to outsource jobs is to save costs (59%). The second reason is to focus on core competencies (57%). 47% of companies outsource to solve capacity issues.

16817939

Unabomber for President

Unabomber for President was a political campaign with the overt aim of electing the "Unabomber" as a write-in candidate in the 1996 presidential election, despite the fact that he was clearly not allowed to serve. The campaign's slogan was the Shermanesque statement "if elected, he will not serve."

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Unabomber for President

The campaign was launched in Boston in September 1995 by Lydia Eccles – a Boston artist who had long harbored concerns about "totalitarian tendencies in technology" – and antinatalist Chris Korda. It took the overt form of a political action committee, Unabomber Political Action Committee (UNAPACK). Influenced initially by ideas of the Situationist International, the group included anarchists, hardcore punks, 1960s counter-culturalists, eco-socialists, pacifists, militants and primitivists. Its supporters included decentralized anarchist collective CrimethInc. and the Church of Euthanasia.

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Unabomber for President

The campaign received national publicity, and attempts by news organizations to portray it as frivolous were resisted by UNAPACK, who insisted that the issues raised by Kaczynski were portentous, concerning "the fate of mankind". In the words of the "Phoenix New Times", the campaign was "an effort designed to cast votes in protest of the existing hierarchy and its potential replacement." The Maoist Internationalist Movement criticized the campaign as typifying "life-style politics anarchism" and as encouraging protest votes instead of seizing political power from the upper class.

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Unabomber for President

As Bill Brown, director of the campaign's New York City office, said at the time: "Most of the media are unable to deal with the campaign…[t]here is no way for people to understand why you would say 'Unabomber for President' and that gives us a tactical opportunity to explain ourselves." The intended symbolism of the campaign was not that it was a joke, but that the political system was a joke.