Development of Vietnam's financial sector: The key policy issues

On 13 Nov. 2008, VDF organized a workshop on “ Development of Vietnam’s Financial Sector: The key policy issues” presented by Dr Vo Tri Thanh, Head of Policy Research and International Integration, (CIEM). The participants were researchers, policy makers and practitioners from Universities, SSC, banks and WB. The discussions focused on the key policy issues relating to how to develop the financial sector in Vietnam , including banking sector, stock and bond markets, especially bond market. This workshop was the first in the series of workshops will be held under a research cooperation proposal between VDF and SSC. Many research topics were also raised to identify a long term research project such as: how to develop a more balanced improvement of macroeconomic and financial statistics, building of earlier warning system, establishing a benchmark yield curve for Government bonds and setting up credit rating agency for development of corporate bond market etc... Slides

Can Vietnam's economic growth be explained by investment or export: A VAR approach

On 11 November 2008, Ms. Pham Thi Mai Anh, a lecturer of the Diplomatic Academy , Ministry of Foreign Affairs, presented her research evaluating economic growth of the Vietnamese economy during 1986-2007. This research analyzed whether economic growth has been investment-led or export-led, using vector autoregression (VAR) approach. Models relating important macroeconomic variables, such as real GDP, export, investment, and productivity, were constructed. The estimates showed that investment has played a significant role in explaining GDP growth variation, while exports and productivity have not really influenced on such a variation. A variety of question on modeling and policy implication were lively exchanged between presenter and participants. For further information, please click here for presentation file

Singapore conference on emerging Vietnam

On 30&31-10-2008, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) in Singapore organized a conference on Emergence of Vietnam as a Middle Income Country. 10 sessions covered macro & finance, industry & trade, SOEs, infrastructure, corruption, environment, Mekong subregion, etc. Presenters included Le Dang Doanh, Vo Tri Thanh (photos), Ton Nu Thi Ninh, Noritada Morita, MoNRE, IMF, WB and Fulbright. From VDF, Kenichi Ohno emphasized the need to renovate industrial policy to avoid the middle income trap, while Pham Truong Hoang and Nguyen Ngoc Son contributed on human skill and poverty issues. This was ISEAS's third study on regional countries.   industry   poverty

Findings on remittances and elderly welfare in Vietnam

On Friday 31 Oct.,  2008, VDF welcomed Dr. Wade D. Pfau (photo, right), an associate professor of GRIPS, to present his co-authored research with Dr. Giang Thanh Long (NEU/VDF) (photo, left) on the remittances, living arrangements, and poverty status of the elderly in Vietnam. This research is under the Univers Foundation Research Grant that the authors were awarded for the fiscal year 2007/08. The findings show that the percentage of the Vietnamese elderly who are living with their children is still high, but it has decreased over the past decade. At the same time, the percentage of households with only elderly or elderly living alone has been increased. Remittances vary, depending on the elderly household living arrangements, e.g. living with children results in less remittances, while having more children living outside the household results in more remittances. Logistic models show that remittances do help the poor, and pensions do not crowd out remittances. As such, even with the presence of remittances, expanding the pension scheme may have more beneficial impacts for reducing elderly poverty. Slides