Economic Reforms and Their Impact on Agricultural Development in Vietnam

Abstract

To evaluate the impact of economic reforms on agricultural development in Vietnam, the article is divided into four parts. In the first part, the situation of the agricultural sector before the reform doi moi is described and analysed. Then the author presents the economic reforms in agriculture, including the management system of production, land reform and market policy, in the second section; in the third section the impact of the reform in terms of economic performance and social changes are analysed. findings of the study are presented in the concluding section. In the past few decades, Vietnam has experienced many twists and turns in the course of its development, encountering tremendous difficulties that perhaps no other country in Asia had been confronted with. Against the background of increasing world-wide political upheavals such as the ending of the Cold War and, with it, the confrontation between superpowers and the change in political orientation of a series of states. Vietnam made obvious adjustments in its international relations as well as carried out fundamental reforms in its internal economy. In Vietnam, people call the policy changes in this period doi moi, which means reform, restructuring or renovation. International economists who have assessed the achievements of economic renovation in Vietnam fully agree that the biggest success has been recorded in the field of agriculture. This view is shared by Vietnamese. A new mechanism for management in the agricultural sector in Vietnam was initiated in the late 1970s. During the two subsequent decades, it developed Vietnam from a country suffering chronic food deficiency into one producing not only sufficient food to feed 73 million people, but with a surplus of over 1.7 million tonnes of rice, hundreds of thousands of tonnes of meat and vegetables for export, earning over US$1 billion for the country. In most rural areas, food deficiency was eliminated, and is unlikely to recur. A commercially-based agriculture was established with well-known export products such as rice, coffee, rubber, cashew nut, tea, corn, pork, canned vegetables, etc. This article will depict the reform measures in the framework of doi moi and examine the impact of reforms on the development of the agricultural sector in Myanmar. 1. Agriculture in Vietnam before Doi Moi Vietnam is still in its initial stages of development and remains predominantly an agricultural economy. Accordingly the important role of agriculture until now has been affirmed consistently in high-level official documents. The urgent need in food, raw material for producing consumer good and export goods make agriculture top place and top priority in the economy ...' About 70 per cent of the population (Table 1) and more than 79 per cent of the labour force work in the agricultural sector. About 35-40 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) were produced annually by this labour. Since 1990 the percentages of agricultural population and agricultural labour have been increasing. This trend seems to go against the grain of conventional wisdom which generally portends a reduction in agricultural labour as a result of economic progress. Vietnam's agricultural sector before doi moi underwent a high degree of collectivization in almost all areas. Use of land, equipment and raw materials, as well as the distribution of income were all decided by a central planning mechanism and imposed from above. Households were grouped and expected to farm collectively with the state providing material and everybody receiving more or less the same rewards. collectivization of agriculture went through three phases: a loose form of cooperation by work-exchange teams (to doi cong) from 1955-57: the establishment of low level cooperatives (hop tac xa bac thap) from 1958-60; and the raising of cooperatives to a high level of collectivization (hop tac xa bac cao) from 1961 to the late 1970s. …