ABSTRACT
In late 1986, the Vietnamese Communist Party and state leadership abandoned traditional socialist dogma, permitting it to recognize a multisector economy that acknowledges the market as an efficient allocator of resources. Comparable to the Chinese policy of promoting 'a socialist market economy', Vietnam's Doi Moi strategy of supporting 'market forces within a socialist realm' may appear to be a veritable contradiction. Nevertheless, Vietnamese policy-makers and scholars have reaffirmed the movement towards a market economy and the intention to continue along the socialist path: 'Markets are and remain markets, no matter the political system under which they function'. Economies function through political rules and institutions which structure transactions and the organization of production and distribution. Political decisions shape the institutional and market framework; and the state as an authority supervises the formal rules of market behaviour. Foreign trade is a matter of high priority in Vietnam under Doi Moi.
