Vietnam economy prospers in peace
Business booming 30 years after 'The American War'
Friday, April 29, 2005 Posted: 9:19 AM EDT (1319 GMT)
HO
CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam (Reuters) -- Thirty years ago Vietnam's
communists won a war over the United States and its allies that
reunified the country.
On the 30th anniversary of the end of
what Vietnamese call "The American War," its leader can now claim --
almost -- that they have also won the peace.
Coffee plantations
cover the scene of epic battles like Khe Sanh; abandoned American tanks
that for decades stood on beaches as reminders of the war have
disappeared and been replaced by the laid back sunbeds of five-star
seaside resorts.
Vietnam is the world's biggest exporter of the
instant coffee the world drinks; it is the world's third biggest rice
exporter and a net exporter of oil.
Property prices in its
biggest metropolis Ho Chi Minh City, known as Saigon in the French and
American eras, as well as the capital Hanoi, are soaring to levels of
European capitals.
On the weekend, work started on building the country's tallest building, a nearly 90 storey structure.
War has receded
In
the year ahead, loom landmarks that if achieved would end any final
debate about Vietnam's place in the world -- a possible historic visit
this June to the White House by a Vietnamese leader; possible entry
into the World Trade Organization opening global markets to its goods
by the end of this year; hosting of a summit next year in Hanoi of
APEC, a group including the United States and wartime allies like
Australia and South Korea.
On my previous visits to Vietnam in 1985, 1995 and 2000, the war always seemed somehow still present.
Not anymore.
The
billboards on highways and cities advertise new businesses, projects
and luxury goods, not the achievements and slogans of wartime.
Traveling throughout Vietnam these past two weeks I barely saw a soldier or gun unless behind walls of a military installation.
Markets
in the smallest village to the biggest towns were bursting with food as
though the rice rationing of the years immediately after the war had
happened in an ancient time when all the world was hungry.
 Vietnamese scale the wall of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon just before the war ended in 1975. |  |
Foreign
tourists are everywhere -- on the beaches, in the villages in the cafes
and bars. There also casinos and although communist authorities have
done away with many of the ills of society, the massage, just as in the
war years still reigns supreme.
From the end of April, tourists
from Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland join Japanese, another nation
that occupied Vietnam in World War two, in enjoying visa-free travel to
Vietnam.
The notorious Ho Chi Minh Trail, down which the
communists poured the troops and supplies that won the war, is now a
paved highway not a hidden jungle path.
But it is a route that
can still be deadly. The day after I drove on it, 32 war veterans who
had survived B-52 bombings when they were last there, died in a bus
crash in a tragic prelude to April 30's anniversary celebrations.
So is Vietnam still a secretive communist state then?
Perhaps
communist-ruled is a better description because every Vietnamese I met
had a scheme to get rich quick and was willing to talk.
There
still remains a bloated bureaucracy, a tangle of outdated business
rules and other regulations that need sweeping away before Vietnam can
truly declare itself an open society.
The media remains tightly
controlled and for a foreign journalist on a visit, endless permission
is required for travel and interviews making me wish that maybe I
should have come just as one of the tourists who seem to wander more
freely.
American and European diplomats say Vietnam still has
much to do on freedom of expression, freedom of religion and
transparency in all fields.
But farmers own their land; fishermen
own their boats; three bedroom townhouses that would not be out of
place in a European city are snapped up for nearly half a million
dollars almost the instant they come on the market.
Daily flights
to Singapore, Bangkok and other nearby Asian destination are full, not
with party officials or even business people, but down to earth
Vietnamese shoppers.
The Vietnamese Army is entering the mobile
phone market and has a Web site advertising its many other business
interests like construction, not its weapons systems.
Golf courses seem to be springing up everywhere including possibly near My Lai, site of the war's worst atrocity.
A
Vietnamese boat refugee who fled the country when he was aged 15 to
Australia has returned to introduce thoroughbred horse racing for the
first time.
During Saturday's anniversary, perhaps a sign on a
store in Ho Chi Minh City sums up how the old and the new, the
communist and the capitalist come together
"Thirty percent off all clothes on April 30," the store advertises.
Copyright 2005
Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
