The fact is that Vietnam has obtained comprehensive and tremendous achievements during the past 20 years of implementing the Renewal process. Thanks to the process, Vietnam has escaped from a socio-economic crisis, secured high economic growth, upgraded infrastructure facilities and improved people’s well-being.

“The most impressive thing is that everyone enjoys the fruits of the Renewal process,” said Dr Nguyen Si Dzung, Vice President of the National Assembly Office.

The Renewal process, which was launched during the 6^th National Party Congress in December 1986, has changed almost all aspects of life. Since its launch there have been numerous drastic changes in production, consumption, investment, monetary and foreign trade policies. The process has created a big source of encouragement for millions of Vietnamese people in production and emulation movements, and has resulted in a high economic growth rate of more than 7 percent annually from 1987.

With 25 million people escaping hunger and poverty, Vietnam has been recognised as the most successful nation in the world in reducing hunger and poverty rates. 

According to Mr Dzung, there have been four major economic gains in the past 20 years.
First, the Renewal process helped transform Vietnam’s economy from being centrally planned to the current socialist-oriented market economy – a multi-sectoral and multi-ownership economy. In this new mechanism, the State economy maintains the key role, while the collective and private economies are encouraged to develop without restrictions.

Second, from a closed economy based on a self-sufficient mechanism and relying on imports, Vietnam has developed an open economy focused on global integration and an export-driven mechanism.

Third, economic growth has been coupled with social progress and equality for the sake of human development, with top priority given to hunger and poverty reduction and job generation.

Fourth, together with economic reforms, the political regime has been gradually renewed, focusing on increasing the leadership capacity of the Party. 

Former resident representative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Vietnam Jordan Ryan said successes in exports in the early 1990s were attributed to the Government’s strong efforts to develop a market and export-driven economy from a self-sufficient economy based on imports.

However, he said, the Renewal process is facing challenges in the integration process, including the widening gap between the rich and the poor. One of the major solutions to overcome the situation, according to Mr Ryan, is to increase the quality of training in all levels and investment in education in rural and far-flung areas. In addition, the Government should take effective measures to fully tap the potential of the private economic sector. He said he believes that the achievements in the past 20 years will help Vietnam implement the Renewal process successfully, particularly in the next five years.

During a recent visit to Vietnam, Hafiz Pasha, an assistant to the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said there are four major challenges for transitional economies to overcome. They are managing and performing the economy efficiently to sustain a high economic growth rate; narrowing the gap between the rich and the poor; developing the economy in a more balanced manner; and resolving difficulties for the private economic sector, and creating a more equal economic environment to fully tap all resources for development.

By and large, the Renewal process under the clear-sighted leadership of the Party, which persistently embarks on national independence and socialism and strives for the benefit of the people, has paid off. This is also Vietnam’s biggest lesson after 20 years of implementing the process and the compass for all future activities of the Party.

Nguyen Trong Phuc, former director of the Party History Academy under the Ho Chi Minh City-based National Politics Institute, said that one of the major gains of the Renewal process is that the entire Party and people unite to promote the aggregate strength of the entire nation to implement the process, and successes in the past 20 years have testified to that fact. Therefore, he said the process should be promoted more efficiently in the coming time, in which the leadership role of the Party plays a decisive role.

Experiencing many ups and downs in the course of history, the Party has led the Vietnamese nation to wrest back independence and freedom and carry out the Renewal process, obtaining impressive and tremendous achievements for the sake of a rich people, strong country and an equitable, democratic and civilised society.