ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the current performance of the Vietnamese economy. The main purpose is to make a tentative assessment of the present state of the process of economic reform, with particular emphasis on the interaction between the state and the market. The focus is on institutional change rather than macro-economic developments. It analyses the phenomenon of rising numbers of unofficial city-dwellers bears the telling title 'Labour Becomes a Marketable Product'. The development model adopted in North Vietnam, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV), from the late 1950s is referred to as the 'DRV model'. The crisis never assumed the proportions of that occurring in today's Russia but it was serious enough to endanger the continuation of liberalization and decentralization. The economic isolation of Vietnam has been broken and the decades-long obstacles of the US trade and investment embargo and the lack of agreement with the IMF and World Bank have been removed.
