Vietnam and Cuba: Yin and Yang?

Abstract

Vietnam is a poor, rural country that anticipated the break-up of the Soviet Union, its major trade partner, aid donor, and political-military ally. During the mid-1980s, when the country faced inflation rates of over 10 per cent per month, sporadic food shortages and isolation from most western donors, the Vietnamese leadership crafted a policy of Doi Moi. This policy, often translated as ‘renovation’, dismantled cooperatives, permitted the creation of family farms, liberalized prices for most goods, and introduced gradual macroeconomic stability. Although Vietnam’s progress was slowed by the financial crisis in East Asia in the late 1990s, growth in output and exports took off, and real GDP has never grown more slowly than 5 per cent annually for any extended period. It grew nearly 9 per cent per annum between 1991 and 1997.