Comment on “Has Nguyen Phu Trong's Leadership Curbed Economic Reform? Economic Reform Trends in Vietnam”

Published date01 July 2020
Date01 July 2020
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/aepr.12306
Comment on Has Nguyen Phu Trongs
Leadership Curbed Economic Reform?
Economic Reform Trends in Vietnam
Masaya SHIRAISHI
Waseda University
JEL codes: P31, P48, D72, D73, O14, O43
Vietnam is trying to adopt market economic institutions, while maintaining the Lenin-
ist political regime. How and to what extent are those two things compatible? This is
one of the most important questions which many specialists on Vietnam have tackled
since the start of Doi Moi. To nd a hint of the answer to this puzzling question,
Sakata (2020) focuses on the economic reform policy of the present leadership. The
key concept should be the inclusiveness of the ongoing policy, in terms of its targets.
The usual discussion is that the Vietnamese Doi Moi policy ofcially announced the
application of equal treatment between all enterprises regardless of their ownership type,
however in actuality it favors state-owned enterprises through rent-seeking practices.
Sakata goes beyond this conventional interpretation, and concludes that the current lead-
ership in Vietnam tries to bring successful private enterprises under the patronage sys-
tem by expanding the range of application of its national champion policy.
The national champion policy is originally very nationalistic in the sense that it
emphasizes the international competitiveness of Vietnamese economic institutions.
The nationalistic sentiment in this economic dimension was stirred up during the pro-
cess of Vietnams accession to the World Trade Organization and again during the
Trans-Pacic Partnership negotiations. Furthermore, the rst private enterprises which
the government has selected, such as Vingroup and Viet Jet Air, are very popular
among the Vietnamese people. Vingroup is the owner of shopping malls in major cit-
ies in Vietnam which attract many consumers. Viet Jet Ari is the most popular low
cost carrier company in Vietnam and has whose sales that have surpassed those of the
state-owned air company, Vietnam Airlines.
Sakatas arguments are very attractive, but seemingly due to the space constraints,
he cannot fully develop many related issues, such as the detailed mechanism of the
rent-seeking system, the durability of the current system, the unique distinctiveness of
Vietnam which makes it differ from the system(s) of other East Asian developmental
Correspondence: Masaya Shiraishi, Waseda University, c/o Graduate School of Asia Pacic
Studies, Sodai Nishi Waseda Building, 1-21-1 Nishi Waseda, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-0051,
Japan.
© 2020 Japan Center for Economic Research 325
doi: 10.1111/aepr.12306 Asian Economic Policy Review (2020) 15, 325326

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