World Bank economist talks ‘Vietnam 2035’ at RMIT Hanoi

Tiếng Việt

World Bank economist talks ‘Vietnam 2035’ at RMIT Hanoi

Dr Sandeep Mahajan, The World Bank’s lead economist in Vietnam, was in Hanoi recently to give a lecture centred on the recently released report Vietnam 2035: Towards Prosperity, Creativity, Equity and Democracy.

Authored by international and Vietnamese experts at the invitation of the Vietnamese government, the report is not an official government document but evaluates the options in front of Vietnam as it moves towards its goal of becoming an ‘upper-middle-income’ economy by 2035.

World Bank economist talks 'Vietnam 2035' at RMIT Hanoi.jpg

Dr Mahajan noted the advances Vietnam has made under Doi Moi, which was enacted in 1986, and compared the growth to the fastest growing economy in the world over the same period – China.

“Unlike China,” he said, “this high growth has been achieved without increasing inequality.”

Furthermore, he explained that it had occurred whilst reducing the number of what The World Bank considers people living in ‘extreme poverty’ (those earning less than US$1.90 per day) from an incredible 50 per cent of the population in 1990 to three per cent today.

“Vietnam is building on a strong record,” Dr Mahajan said.

“It wants to follow the trajectory of South Korea 40 years ago, of China 15 years ago,” he said, explaining that while the aspiration is justified, it won’t come easy.

Dr Sandeep Mahajan presents to RMIT Vietnam staff, students and alumni at Hanoi City campus on 22 June 2016.

One of those challenges involves the environment.

RMIT Vietnam’s Senior Lecturer in Economics Dr Le Thai Ha listened to the lecture by Dr Mahajan, and was firmly in favour of the focus the report puts on sustainable growth, and in particular environmental sustainability.

Acknowledging the huge toll that twenty-five years of rapid growth has had on Vietnam’s environment, Dr Ha called the impacts ‘alarming’ before citing several examples of what she called ‘pressure being placed on the carrying capacity of the country’.

Dr Le Thai Ha, RMIT Vietnam Senior Lecturer in Economics, believes the key challenge for Vietnam is to achieve environmentally sustainable economic growth.

Among them she included the 360,000 hectares of natural forest that were lost from the Central Highlands of Vietnam between 2008 and 2014, a staggering 14 per cent of the total forest area in the region.

“In the long run,” said Dr Ha, “environmental degradation undermines the very foundation upon which economic growth is built, and erodes the environment, the economy, and society.”

“The key challenge is to achieve environmentally sustainable economic growth.

“To resolve the trade-off between economic growth and sustainability, mankind must find a way to balance the two and allow them to coexist.”

The full ‘Vietnam 2035’ report is available for free download here. At the time of writing it had been downloaded 22,900 times.

Story: Jon Aspin

Business and management

30 June 2016

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World Bank economist talks ‘Vietnam 2035’ at RMIT Hanoi

World Bank economist talks ‘Vietnam 2035’ at RMIT Hanoi

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