HTC in Vietnam (Economics)

1. Introduction
Vietnam, a south-eastern Asian country, is a country with a fast-growing economy and has the potential to become a developed country by the year of 2020. There’s a wide gap in wealth between the rich and the poor in Vietnam, which has been significantly widened since 2002. Recently, Vietnam had made a few advances in manufacturing, oil production… but mainly, Vietnam’s economy is still agricultural, and millions of Vietnamese still depend on agriculture (“Vietnam profile”, 2014). International trading also expends dramatically in Vietnam. Beside of many kinds of agricultural products, Vietnam also is the second most important clothes supplier to the US, its main international trading partner. Vietnam joined WTO (World Trade Organization) on January 11, 2007 as the 150th member of the organization and had made lots of important improvement to its economy since (Tumbarello, 2007). This report is to discuss more detailed about the changes of the specific economy in the last 10 years (2004-2013).
2. Production output performance analysis
For the last 10 years, Vietnam has made a positive production output performance. Shown below is the Vietnam GDP indicator graph of the years.
Vietnam economy expanded fast, and the GDP index increased steadily over the years. As production technology improved beside with labour supply increased, the production output possibility also increased to the higher levels. By 2013, Vietnam GDP had reached to more than 155 billion U.S dollars, grows by 269% since 2004. The “GDP growth rate” graph to indicate the growth rate in detail is shown below.

According to the indicator above, it is noticeable that although after 2008, the GDP growth rate is no longer as high as it was before, but there was no negative growth value is recorded, which also means there wasn’t any recession that happened to be big enough to be recorded. Vietnam GDP had its lowest growth rate (of the 10 years) in 2009, dropped to about only 3%. After 2009, the growth rate fluctuated erratically.

GDP per capita increased as GDP increased. From 2004 to 2013, Vietnam GDP per capita had increased by 50%, compare to 269% of GDP growth, this is not a high rate. However, as the average income and average standard of living got higher over the years, the people in Vietnam are promised to have better life in the future, but for now, Vietnam GDP per capita is still on a level which is considered ‘low’.
3. Labour market analysis
Although Vietnam has a low unemployment rate, one of the lowest all over the globe, there is a problem that the majority of the unemployed are young people.

Unemployment rate of Vietnam changes over time unstably. In the last 10 years, the highest unemployment rate of Vietnam was in 2010, which nearly reached 3% of the labour force. The lowest rate was in 2013, which dropped to almost 1.8%. To achieve full employment, the government had opened many job centre so the unemployed could have more chances to find their jobs.
4. Price level analysis
Inflation in Vietnam was more serious a problem in the past than it is in recent days. Shown below is the graph indicates Vietnam Inflation rate for the last 10 years, from 2004 to 2013.
2 only concerning events happened were that in 2008 and 2011, due to external influences as well as loose policies, inflation rate got pushed up to about 28% and 23% respectively (“Inflation in Vietnam”, n.d.). After that, from 2012 onward, the inflation rate was kept at single digit because of the tighter established policies and lower demand (due to low GDP growth rate in 2012).
5. Conclusion
The performance Vietnam economy has made the last decade is spectacular. It is one of the best economic performance in the world over the last 10 years. The economy is changing and will become industrial soon in the future. The future seems very promising for this country.