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December 14, 2001

HANOI, Vietnam (Associated Press) - Vietnam's communist government has issued a decree giving more autonomy to Ho Chi Minh City, including the power to issue bonds and seek loans, state media reported Friday.

``The decree will create conditions to sustain in the best way Ho Chi Minh City's potential, dynamism and creativeness,'' Mayor Le Thanh Hai told Tuoi Tre newspaper. ``The decree creates great joy and inspiration for the city.''

Ho Chi Minh City, previously known as Saigon, is the country's financial hub and produces one-third of its economic output. The decree was issued Wednesday and goes into effect Dec. 27.

The decree gives the mayor the power to approve major projects funded by local government. Previously, such projects had to be approved by the prime minister.

The city government will also be allowed to issue regulations on land and housing management, and control urban planning.

Deputy Mayor Mai Quoc Binh said the new powers are not enough, adding that the city has asked for the power to create a municipal police force, establish corporations to encourage investment, and change the organization of local governments.

``The decentralization of power is not enough. It only opens initial breakthroughs, but does not settle all the city's pressing issues,'' Binh was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

A government official said recently that if the policy succeeds in Ho Chi Minh City, the central government could expand the model to other major cities in the country.
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Reform or pay the price, Vietnam warned

By Emad Mekay

WASHINGTON (Asia Times)- The World Bank is pressing Vietnam to speed up economic reforms it says will help the country on its rocky path from central planning to free market.

"Vietnam has taken significant steps in the past year to restore growth and reduce poverty, but in light of the current global slowdown, [it] needs to act quickly and seize the opportunity to gain in competitiveness and position itself for the decade ahead," said Andrew Steer, the bank's country director.

The urging comes as Vietnam prepares for increased commerce under a bilateral trade pact signed on Monday with the United States. It also follows last week's meeting of Vietnam's donors, at which Hanoi won pledges of US$2.4 billion in aid for next year so long as it toes the bank's line on economic restructuring and consults the lender on how best to spend this money.

The bank is pushing a raft of policy reforms. It argues, in a new report entitled "Implementing Reforms for Faster Growth and Poverty Reduction", that these will help Hanoi in "establishing itself as a stable and predictable location of high-return investment" and "enhancing their international reputation as a country open to business".

The recommendations - privatization, improved governance for companies and the fledgling stock market, and the like - are not new. Rather, the bank itself acknowledges it is trying to goad Hanoi with a simple message: open fully and quickly to international investors or fall victim to the global recession.

The slowdown, although cyclical, is the worst in two decades, the bank says. It projects global economic growth of 1.3 percent for this year, one-third last year's 3.8 percent and the lowest rate in eight years.

Prospects for recovery have been pushed back to late 2002 by the events of September 11 and their aftermath. Growth in the volume of world trade has fallen from 13 percent in 2000 to around 1 percent in 2001 - the sharpest decline in two decades - and is expected to recover to only 4 percent next year.

In its report, the Bank urges Vietnam to speed economic restructuring, tap the US and Chinese export markets, and move to boost depressed rural incomes.

Despite the uncertainty that shrouds the global economy, the lender sounds upbeat about Vietnam, saying the country's medium-term prospects for growth "remain good - internal factors driving growth are more favorable today than at any time in the past five years".

For their part, Vietnamese officials appear to be banking on their new bilateral trade agreement with the United States to double the country's US exports, despite signs of political and business resistance to key products such as Vietnamese catfish.

US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick and Vietnamese Minister of Trade Vu Khoan exchanged implementation letters on Monday, thus bringing into effect the bilateral trade treaty signed by the US Congress in October."This is an example of how two nations once divided by war can employ trade as a tool to work toward reconciliation," Zoellick said. "It's good that we are talking business now," said Duong Le, a trade officer at the Vietnamese embassy here. "People of the two countries will get to know each other better this way."

The Vietnamese diplomat said his country's exports to the US market since 1994, when former president Bill Clinton lifted a trade embargo against Vietnam, mainly have consisted of agricultural commodities like coffee and fish. Under the new trade terms, Washington has promised to lower tariffs for Vietnamese companies from its current 40 percent, 10 times those imposed on products from other counties, to 4 percent. Le said this would ease the way for Vietnamese footwear, garments, ceramics and handicrafts, boosting the poverty-stricken Asian nation's balance of trade.

In return, US companies in banking, transportation, and telecommunications will be allowed to sell to Vietnam's 80 million consumers and tap the country's investment potential. Last year, the United States exported US$368 million of goods including industrial machinery, fertilizers, and semiconductors to Vietnam.

The same year, Vietnam exported $821 million worth of goods to the United States, according to Zoellick's office.

The agreement, which covers virtually every aspect of bilateral commerce - from trade in services to intellectual property rights and investment - also commits Hanoi to a number of multilateral disciplines

on customs procedures, import licensing, and sanitary measures. It took six years for the proposed bilateral pact to work its way through the US and Vietnamese political systems and in both countries the agreement faced considerable opposition from protectionists out to shield constituent industries and ideologies from the other side.

Even as Congressional approval was won and the sides worked to finalize the paperwork for Monday's exchange of letters, US lawmakers introduced legislation that would force Vietnamese exporters of catfish to sell their goods in the United States under some other name.

Thus it seems the World Bank's job going forward will be to continue to hold Vietnamese feet to the fire on economic restructuring - and hope that protectionists in the United States and elsewhere do not stand in the way of the gains for which Vietnam's reformers embarked on their journey to market.
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ON THE LAW
Making a Case for Strength Through Unity

By Mai Tran
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

For Andy Hoang, the path was always clear. If he was smart and worked hard, he would go to medical school and become a doctor. If that didn't work out, he could always become a lawyer. Lisa Trinh's parents envisioned a similar future for their daughter. "The legal profession is not in high regard in Vietnam as it is here," Hoang said. "In Vietnam, if you were an intellect, you'd go into medicine. Law was seen as an easier avenue." Trinh, 22, and Hoang, 27, are freshmen at Whittier Law School in Costa Mesa and have joined forces to found the Vietnamese American Student Bar Assn., the latest in a long line of student legal organizations that seek to serve a particular ethnic community, interest or gender.

The association has signed up 60 members at Whittier, Western State and Chapman law schools in Orange County. Organizers hope to expand nationwide, recruiting at schools as far off as Texas and Michigan, states where there has been a similar influx of Vietnamese emigres.

"The most difficult part was getting students to recognize that it's a professional organization," said Hoang, of Santa Ana, who fled Vietnam in 1980 as a youngster with his parents and two siblings. "Students thought it was a gathering for fun." Hoang's challenge is to convince other Vietnamese law students that they need to come together, not only for reassurance that they are pursuing a lofty profession, but to help their community.

In the beginning, Trinh and Hoang sought advice from Orange County Superior Court Judge Nho Trong Nguyen, the county's first Vietnamese American judge. Nguyen spoke at the group's first general meeting recently at Whittier Law School, attended by more than 125 law students, judges, dignitaries and educators. "If you fail to think of your community, if you fail to do community service, then you fail to become a good lawyer," Nguyen said to loud applause. "We need to serve. We need to progress. We need to be humble." And they are doing just that.

Legal Aid to the Elderly Planned

On Fridays, the group plans to provide legal aid and services to the elderly and newcomers at the Vietnamese Community of Orange County Inc., a nonprofit social services agency in Santa Ana. "A lot of people don't understand the system. We can take what we learn and help the community," said Trinh, whose family left Vietnam in 1975. "It's good training for us because it exposes issues." She said she is hoping to iron out simple misunderstandings that result from cultural differences. For example, out of respect some people in the Vietnamese tradition would not look at the judge during court proceedings. That could be seen as impolite in America.

"We want to bridge the Western philosophy of law and the Eastern philosophy of law," Hoang said. "There was no paramount legal structure in Vietnam. People have a fear of authority, and we want to soothe out those wrinkles and let them know that we're here to protect them and punish those who commit crimes." Marjan Rabbi, president of the Middle Eastern Student Law Assn., said having an organized group provides support to students who face similar problems and issues.

"It's great to have a program where students can identify with their group," said Rabbi, a second-year student at Whittier Law School. "People would understand my pains and problems more than anyone else."

The special interest groups also provide education about their members' culture.

School officials said the Middle Eastern group has become more vocal in explaining members' heritage since the Sept. 11 attacks.

"Right now, we're being looked at as evil because of the situation," Rabbi said. Her group has participated in memorial services for victims of terrorism and sold American flags to show solidarity.

"They've made their presence, and they've been very educational," said Susan McGuigan, associate dean of student services at Whittier Law School. "The importance of student organizations is that it helps to empower them on an individual basis. Law school can be very stressful, and if they have a support group, they provide support for each other and another outlet to public service to the community.

"It makes them a better law student and a better lawyer."

Time Constraints on Students a Problem

Starting a legal organization is not an easy task. Students don't have time to raise money or to recruit enough members, said Brian Comstock, president of the Student Bar Assn. at Western State. Chapters at most schools must have at least 20 members to qualify for funding through student bar associations, which collect money from student tuition.

At Western State, several student organizations have seen their membership dwindle or have shut down. The National Lawyers Guild chapter now has fewer than 20 members, disqualifying it from funding, Comstock said.

At the other end of the political spectrum, the school's Republican Student Law Assn. slowly faded until it disbanded, Comstock said.

The Vietnamese group still needs to complete paperwork to be recognized as a chapter at Western State, Comstock said.

McGuigan said success for an organization is measured by the number of members it draws, how involved they are in activities, how vocal they are when issues are raised and whether they make their opinions known.

In the long run, the Vietnamese American association's organizers hope to position members for successful careers in law.

The recent passage of a bilateral agreement between the United States and Vietnam is expected to result in the need for more lawyers who can serve as liaisons based on their experience in both cultures and legal systems.

Under the trade deal, which takes effect next month, Vietnamese goods and services will gain access to the world's largest market with the same low tariffs enjoyed by most nations. In return, Vietnam must open its state-controlled markets to foreign competition and international standards.

"We're bicultural and bilingual," Hoang said. "It segues nicely into the trade agreement. If you send a Westerner to Vietnam, they may not be as successful as someone with both cultures and languages."
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