Maintaining Socially-Inclusive Economic Growth By Enabling Opportunity: Achieving Sustainable Development in Vietnam
Huynh, Hai
2008
- Submitted in partial fulfillment of the degree of Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. Abstract: Throughout its development, Vietnam has proceeded with caution in its experimentation with market mechanisms and global integration, employing substantial measures to reduce poverty through socially-inclusive economic growth. The past decade in Vietnam can be ... read morecharacterized by robust economic development and absolute poverty decline premised upon extensive legal and economic reform, increased foreign investment, industry-wide deregulation and privatization, and the awakening of a long-suppressed entrepreneurial spirit. This paper presents industry and competitive analyses of Vietnams telecommunications and banking sectors and explores the effect of a gap in access to these services on continued entrepreneurial opportunity and socially-inclusive economic development. The main argument against the importance of the provision of access to telecommunications and financial services to impoverished communities is the traditional belief that these products are of marginal value to populations struggling to cope with physical and economic security. I argue to the contrary, that convenient and affordable access to these services can generate entrepreneurial opportunity and income enough to mitigate many of the physical and fiscal challenges that afflict the poor. I propose that the effective provision of universal access to these services requires comprehensive privatization, increased competition, cross-sector convergence, and the hybridization of the lower cost structure and network effects of mobile telephony with the high sunk cost infrastructure inherent in traditional banking and information exchange networks. The achievement of these targets can allow for a more affordable and accessible service that will reach a larger, more cost sensitive user base. The significant reduction in the cost of use, coupled with a marked enhancement of the value-offer, will result in the broad delivery of connectivity, financial services and information exchange. This in turn, will bolster entrepreneurial upstarts of all sizes, create employment, link and strengthen the private sector, and generate socially-inclusive economic growth in Vietnam.read less
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- 7p88ct85q
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- tufts:UA015.012.074.00006
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