ABSTRACT
The Soviet-style centralized planning model was imposed in the late 1950s upon North Vietnam and in the late 1970s upon South Vietnam after the official reunification of the country in 1975. The government ordered that all trade and business operations of ‘bourgeois’ tradesmen be abolished; only small merchants of retail goods who were not controlled by the state could exist (Charles and Hoa, 1996). Under the government planning system, all food distribution was carried out through a rationing system or state-owned stores. However, this centrally planned economy was not sustainable for very long as the country soon started suffering from an acute crisis with respect to staple goods. This failure prompted Vietnamese governments to introduce a renovation policy, known as ‘Doi Moi,’ in 1986. From 2001-2011, the GDP of the country grew at over 7 per cent with cities accounting for 70 per cent of the national GDP, owing to industrial and trading activities.
