Vietnam 2035 report: the news behind the scenes
A report on development with a long term vision is important for any country. In 2000, Malaysia released Malaysia 2020 Report, while in 2010 China, in cooperation with the World Bank (WB), released the China 2030 Report.
“We want to have such a report for Vietnam for a long time,” Lan said.
In mid-2014, when WB’s President Jim Yong Kim paid a working visit to Vietnam, the idea of making a report was put into discussion. A decision was made that the report would be made with research from both Vietnamese and WB experts.
Learning from the Chinese case (the Chinese and English versions of the Chinese report were not absolutely the same), the Vietnamese side and the WB decided to closely cooperate from the very beginning so as to reach consensus in all matters of research.
At first, WB showed a bright picture with big economic achievements gained by Vietnam.
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese editorial board wanted to make a report with critical points which can point out existing problems for Vietnam to fix.
Regarding the title of the report "Vietnam 2035: Towards Prosperity, Creativity, Equity and Democracy", Lan said WB suggested using the word Accountability instead of Democracy which was believed to be a “sensitive” word.
The word accountability was used in the latest draft of the report. However, Vietnamese experts successfully persuaded the WB to replace accountability with democracy because the former word cannot cover all the meanings of ‘democracy’.
The two sides initially decided that the report would comprise 12 chapters. However, in November 2014, they agreed that there should be seven chapters only.
The most important message of the report is that Vietnam has to carry out institutional reform, or it will lag behind. This is why there is a chapter in the report on reform, while other chapters also mention the issue.
The question from Deputy PM Vu Duc Dam
During the report compilation, the experts from Vietnam and WB received a question from Vietnamese Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam about whether Vietnam can obtain GDP growth rate of 9 percent per annum and maintain a high growth rate for 20 consecutive years to become a ‘dragon’ in Asia.
However, both the Vietnamese and WB experts gave the ‘no’ answer after trying all possible economic models.
In the best scenario, if Vietnam can carry out institutional reform and improve productivity, it would have annual income per capita of $7,000, or $18,000, if calculating based on purchasing power parity, equal to that of Malaysia in 2010.
