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Many economic problems are still looming large in and outside Vietnam, making
experts at a recent business forum in HCM City believe this year would be very
challenging for Vietnam to reach targets for gross domestic product growth and
inflation.

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2012 GDP, inflation targets hard to achieve

Ho Chi Minh City industrial zones are crafting ways to weather the economic storm and push performances in 2012.

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HCM City in the zone

Author: Doan Hong Quang, World Bank

Consensus-based policy making is a salient feature of Vietnam, where important decisions are collectively made.

Consensus is needed not only for the formulation of a reform vision but also for the elaboration and implementation of this vision. Doi Moi, the most successful economic reform to date, would certainly not have occurred in 1986 if no consensus were reached at the VI Party Congress.

A series of events in 2011 indicate that a vital consensus for the acceleration of economic reforms has been attained. Vietnam’s first major economic event for 2011 was the Communist Party Congress held in January, which set out Vietnam’s development strategy for the next 10 years. Like its predecessor, the 2011–2020 Strategy adopted at the Congress places great emphasis on rapid economic growth, with a target of 7–8 per cent average annual GDP growth over the next decade. The strategy puts increased attention on the quality of growth, including targets on macroeconomic stability and requirements for clarifying the role of the state in a market economy. Nevertheless, the ambitious quantitative growth target suggests a continuation rather than a fundamental break with previous strategies.

But events took a significant turn just a few weeks after the Congress. In late February the government issued Resolution 11, aiming to restore Vietnam’s macroeconomic stability and cool down an overheated economy. Specifically, the resolution sought to address high levels of inflation, tension in the foreign exchange market, high nominal interest rates and declining foreign exchange reserves. The implementation of Resolution 11 remained a top priority in the government’s agenda throughout 2011, and reviews of its implementation continue to take place regularly. Resolution 11 represents a decisive switch from growth to stability. For the first time, there is an official government policy document that completely neglects the term ‘growth’ in its targets. Its longevity signals a significant change in the mindset of Vietnam’s policy makers.

Signs of a radical shift in economic strategy became more evident when the new administration came into power in July. Several workshops and focus group discussions were held to facilitate policy dialogues regarding the restructuring of Vietnam’s economy to improve efficiency and competitiveness. From this process, consensus was reached on Vietnam’s strategic development priorities, identifying major areas for reform in the coming years. This consensus argues for radical transformation in three areas: state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the financial sector and public investment. The need for reform was also officially documented in the Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP) for the period 2011–2015, which was approved by the National Assembly in November.

Following these events, Vietnam recorded good economic growth in 2011, with an estimated rate of GDP growth at 5.8 per cent. Exports performed very well, increasing by 33 per cent despite a significant decline in global demand. This robust GDP and export growth prevailed over a significant contraction in fiscal and monetary policy, and Vietnam’s strong export performance contributed notably to the reduction of trade deficits and the foreign exchange market’s stabilisation. The rate of inflation also slowed in the last four months, largely due to the implementation of Resolution 11.

The adoption of Resolution 11 and the SEDP in particular indicate that Vietnam has achieved consensus on accelerating market-based reforms in ‘difficult’ reform areas, namely SOEs, the financial sector and public investment. The recent release of an ambitious proposal for SOE reform through to 2020, developed by the National Steering Committee for Enterprise Reform and Development, provides further evidence of this consensus. According to the proposal, about 44 per cent of the remaining 1300 full SOEs will be equitised in the next four years.

In this context, 2012 will be a very challenging year for Vietnam. The country still has to deal with an overheating economy, and inflationary pressures remain a genuine threat to the country’s economic stability. The banking sector is vulnerable, with a rising share of non-performing loans resulting from a long period of extraordinary credit growth. Challenges also lie in transforming the SEDP’s vision into specific actions. The plan calls for a fundamental restructuring of the economy, and while many agree on the vision of the reform, the formulation of a feasible action plan will take time, owing to the likelihood of resistance from economically strong interest groups.

The Vietnamese government is developing a detailed action plan for its ambitious restructuring strategy. It is expected that this plan will be approved by the end of the first quarter of 2012. The timeframe looks very ambitious as consensus for detailed actions still needs to be built. But there is a significant factor which may speed up the implementation process: while the market economy was an unfamiliar concept in previous times, it now receives strong support from the vast majority of Vietnamese people.

Dr Doan Hong Quang is a Senior Economist at the Poverty Reduction and Economic Management Unit, World Bank, Vietnam. This is part of a special feature: 2011 in review and the year ahead.

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The investor of Thach Khe
iron ore mine, the biggest of its kind in Southeast Asian region, has decided to
double investment in the project to ensure it is completed on
schedule.

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Southeast Asia’s largest iron mine to double investment

Businesses, which are facing high inventory level and production stagnation,
welcome the New Year 2012 in anxiety.

Excerpt from:
Facing production stagnation, businesses welcome 2012 in anxiety

As if the reputation of China’s economic data wasn’t shaky enough already, an odd bureaucratic tug of war is casting new doubt on one of the country’s more closely watched indicators.

China’s official Purchasing Managers Index (PMI), a gauge of the nation’s manufacturing activity, has been jointly released by the National Bureau of Statistics and an industry association called the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing (CFLP) since 2005. Now, however, each body is trying to claim the data for itself.

The dispute originated with a statement posted on the Bureau of Statistics website on January 6 (in Chinese) saying it was the bureau that conducted the manager surveys that underpin the index conducted by the bureau. According to the statement, the CFLP merely published the survey under the authorization of the bureau.

The statement also quoted Pan Jiancheng, deputy director of the bureau’s China Economic Monitoring & Analysis Center, as saying the bureau planned to integrate all economic climate surveys and publish them as a group because “whoever conducts the survey should be the one to publish it.”

Three days later, the federation said in a statement on its own website (in Chinese) that PMI would not be part of the official climate surveys to be published by the statistics bureau.

“Somebody from the Bureau of Statistics is unhappy that we are doing such a good job with the PMI and decided to get tricky,” Cai Jin, deputy director of the CFLP, told the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post this week (in Chinese). “This has very negative influence on China’s PMI data.”

CFLP said in its statement that it submitted a request to establish the index in 2004 and that the NBS said it supported the proposal but asked the federation can make use of bureau’s existing enterprise survey resources to avoid redundancy. “Our federation is responsible for the release, analysis and interpretation of the survey,” CFLP said in its statement, adding that it is common practice for independent organizations to publish PMI to ensure objectivity.

According to its website, the CLFP, which claims to have thousands of purchasing manager members, is the only purchasing industry association approved by the State Council, China’s cabinet.

In the days since the Bureau of Statistics published its statement, Mr. Cai said, financial institutions and news media have pelting the CLFP with questions, expressing concern that the bureau might manipulate PMI based on other macroeconomic data.

“That’s why we have to clear things out,” Oriental Morning Post quoted Mr. Cai as saying.

China’s Purchasing Managers Index rose to 50.3 in December compared with 49.0 in November, indicating an increase in manufacturing activity. The rise came after HSBC Holdings PLC’s survey of purchasing managers showed manufacturing activity contracting in December, though at a more moderate pace than in the previous month.

The HSBC PMI has showed contractions in manufacturing in all but one of the past six months, painting a significantly less optimistic picture than the Chinese government’s competing PMI. Analysts say the HSBC PMI has been weaker because it surveys more purchasing managers from smaller firms, which have had difficulty accessing loans from banks.

– Liyan Qi

Reforms started in the late 1970s with the phasing out of collectivized agriculture, and expanded to include the gradual liberalization of prices, fiscal decentralization, increased autonomy for state enterprises, the foundation of a diversified banking system, the development of stock markets, the rapid growth of the non-state sector, and the opening to foreign trade and investment.

In 2009, the global economic downturn reduced foreign demand for Chinese exports for the first time in many years.

China is the world’s fastest-growing major economy, with an average growth rate of 10% for the past 30 years.

Available energy is insufficient to run at fully installed industrial capacity, and the transport system is inadequate to move sufficient quantities of such critical items as coal.

Agricultural output has been vulnerable to the effects of weather, while industry has been more directly influenced by the government.

China has acquired some highly sophisticated production facilities through trade and also has built a number of advanced engineering plants capable of manufacturing an increasing range of sophisticated equipment, including nuclear weapons and satellites, but most of its industrial output still comes from relatively ill-equipped factories.

China’s ongoing economic transformation has had a profound impact not only on China but on the world.

Both forums will start on Tuesday.

But “this is just a beginning.

It also aims to sell more than 15 million of the most fuel-efficient vehicles in the world each year by then.

Although China is still a developing country with a relatively low per capita income, it has experienced tremendous economic growth since the late 1970s.

Agriculture is by far the leading occupation, involving over 50% of the population, although extensive rough, high terrain and large arid areas – especially in the west and north – limit cultivation to only about 10% of the land surface.

Except for the oasis farming in Xinjiang and Qinghai, some irrigated areas in Inner Mongolia and Gansu, and sheltered valleys in Tibet, agricultural production is restricted to the east.

China ranks first in world production of red meat (including beef, veal, mutton, lamb, and pork).

Oil fields discovered in the 1960s and after made China a net exporter, and by the early 1990s, China was the world’s fifth-ranked oil producer.

China is among the world’s four top producers of antimony, magnesium, tin, tungsten, and zinc, and ranks second (after the United States) in the production of salt, sixth in gold, and eighth in lead ore.

China also has extensive hydroelectric energy potential, notably in Yunnan, W Sichuan, and E Tibet, although hydroelectric power accounts for only 5% of the country’s total energy production.

There are railroads to North Korea, Russia, Mongolia, and Vietnam, and road connections to Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Myanmar.

Excerpt from:
China’s Stats Bureau in Odd Ownership Spat Over Important Index

The Mekong, one of the world’s major rivers, starting in Tibet and flowing through south China, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, provides sustenance through irrigation and fishing to those living in its basin. But it also provides hydroelectric power through dams, three of which were built in China and with more planned.

Go here to read the rest:
China Power Dams on The Mekong are setting off alarm bells

On the demand side, the importance of external demand can be fully appreciated by recognizing that the bulk of inventories in Thailand are primarily inputs and finished goods for the export-oriented manufacturing. In the fourth quarter of 2009, for example, net exports and the change in inventories contributed 44 percent of the quarterly growth.
However, the upside is limited due to political and regulatory uncertainty, including from possible political violence and the Map Ta Phut court case. The government investment plan is proceeding at a slow pace, but public investment should contribute to growth.

With economic pundits forecasting that Asian economies will lead global growth over the next few years, led by emerging giants China and India, it seems logical that investors will shift their funds to Thai and Asian equity markets in search of higher yields.
The result is that analysts have little incentive to track a stock, further lowering its visibility.

It is quite normal to see elderly people and married
people, who have to feed dependent children to “save up for the rainy day” by
keeping gold at their coffers. However, hoarding gold has become “in fashion”
among young people as well.

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The youth also hoard gold