ABSTRACT
Vietnam suffered immensely in the period following World War II, undergoing continual conflict from 1940 to 1975, with only a brief respite of peace following the Geneva agreements of 1954. The loss in human lives was staggering. Eight million tons of bombs, four times the tonnage used in World War II, had been rained on a tiny country. The bleak economic situation in Vietnam in the decade following the end of the war in 1975 may, in some substantial measure, be attributable to the particular conditions in the previous decade. The war's adverse effect on the economy of North Vietnam and on the society and economy of South Vietnam were incalculable. During the Second Indochina War (1964-1975), the southern economy had thus become almost parasitical, dependent on external financing and on purchases by the US armed forces of South Vietnamese goods and services. The economic situation in North Vietnam, too, was critical.
