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Time Vietnam eliminated some slogans

Published Wed, Oct 18, 2017 · 09:50 PM

THE Communist Party of Vietnam, the ruling party, is still wedded to economic slogans that are past their shelf-life and are contributing little to the prosperity of the people as they are driven by Soviet-style ideology.

Two economic slogans that are flawed and invalid are "Industrialisation and Modernisation" (IM, or cong nghiep hoa-hien dai hoa) and a "Socialist-Oriented Market Economy" (SOME, or kinh te thi truong dinh huong xa hoi chu nghia).

The economist Adam Fforde argues in his article, "Vietnam: Economic Strategy and Economic Reality", in the Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs that "IM is misplaced, as it ignores services and is out-of-date, and the SOME has largely been a somewhat confused and transparent fig-leaf for support for essentially private commercial interests associated with certain state conglomerates".

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