| Vietnam’s
inspirational beauty guarantees to capture the eye of first-time
visitors. From the floating fruit markets on the Mekong Delta,
to the brilliant green rice paddies that export an average
of 3.1 million tons of rice per year, to the aquamarine waters
of Halong Bay, Vietnam is cloaked in a veil of surreal natural
exquisiteness.
But
the beauty of the people and the landscape masks the difficulty
of life for most Vietnamese. Vietnam is a poor, densely-populated
country that has had to recover from the ravages of war,
the loss of financial support from the old Soviet Bloc, and
the rigidities of a centrally planned economy. While substantial
economic progress was achieved from 1986 to 1996, the 1997
Asian financial crisis offered an opportunity for reform,
but instead, reaffirmed the government's belief that shifting
to a market-oriented economy would lead to disaster. |
|
As it
stands today, over a third of Vietnamese live below the poverty line,
and many more tread dangerously close to it. Many are hopeful that
market reforms associated with the 2001 US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade
Agreement will increase trade with the US and improve the lot of
the poor in Vietnam, but it is unclear whether there will be relief
for the 80% of Vietnam's 80 million people who live in rural areas. |
