Excerpts from its article entitled “Asia’s other miracle”:

Today, many former refugees are returning to seek new careers and start businesses in a transformed Vietnam. It is now one of Asia’s fastest-developing countries, with annual growth averaging 7.5% over the past decade. Although this is less stellar than China’s growth, our special report this week finds that Vietnam has made more impressive progress in cutting poverty than its vast northern neighbour. The government’s initial hopes for 9% growth this year may be dashed, as the country struggles with double-digit inflation and a yawning trade gap. But the long-term outlook remains promising.

Vietnam’s cities are bright and bustling and the countryside, where most of its 85m people still live, seems hardly less developed than that of officially much richer Thailand. A country once on the brink of famine has turned itself into one of the biggest exporters of farm produce. In a stark reversal of fortunes, the Philippines-once Asia’s second-richest country-recently had to beg Vietnam to sell it rice for its hungry millions. Vietnam’s social and economic progress has made it the poster-child of multinational firms and holiday makers. It is a rising diplomatic power: in July it will chair the UN Security Council, on which it holds a temporary seat.

There are many useful things Vietnam could do with its new-found prestige, through both example and active diplomacy. Other countries in transition could benefit from its advice in how to set aside old enmities, open up to the world an reform defunct economies. As a rare friend of Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Myanmar, Vietnam could help coax those benighted places out of self-imposed isolation. As a country that has escaped deep poverty by embracing free trade, Vietnam could encourage developing countries to take a more constructive stance in the Doha round of world trade talks (and shame richer ones into doing the same).

Remarkable as its achievements are, Vietnam is still not satisfied. It wants to go all the way to become a rich, high-tech country and has set a target date of 2020 for getting there. As several foes have learnt over the past century, the intelligence and determination of the Vietnamese should not be underestimated. But if it wants to realize its dream, Vietnam must learn the right lessons from its own story so far, and from those neighbours who have got to where it wants to be.

They began in 1986 with a liberalization programme called Doi moi (renewal), though real reform came in fits and starts over the following 20 years. Collectivisation was scrapped, farmers were given their own land to till and agricultural prices were freed. In 2000, private business-until then strictly curbed-was legalised and a stock market created. Trade barriers were lowered, exports and imports soared, and Vietnam is now among the world’s most open economies.