Mainland Southeast Asia: Turmoil and Peace - Dragons and Tigers: A Geography of South, East and Southeast Asia - page 437

WTO in 2007 and this has provided the country an
anchor to the global market and reinforced the do-
mestic economic reform process.

TODAY'S ECONOMY
Vietnam is anchored by two cities: the capital of Hanoi in
the north and Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) in the south.
Hanoi, a quiet city of bicycles in 1995, is now a bustling
city of motorcycles and automobiles. Hanoi dominates
the T Tonkin Basin and its productive agricultural hinter-
land. Agricultural methods remain traditional in many
areas—dependent on human and animal labor (Fig-
ure 15-15). The port of Haiphong, a mere 60 miles (97
km) away , is linked to Hanoi by a new four-lane highway
that passes through a developing kotadesasi landscape.
Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and Cholon (China-
town), with its 8.5 million people, is an urban agglom-
eration on the Saigon River. It contains about 10 percent
of the country' is population. The name Saigon is com-
monly used. Unlike Hanoi, Saigon can be accessed by
ocean-going vessels, and a Special Economic Zone has
been developed downstream from the port. Saigon is a
bustling city of every form of transportation imagina-
ble, with traditional districts selling a wide array of con-
sumer goods. High-rises punctuate the skyline
everywhere. Modernizing Saigon is distant in form and
fact from the more traditional capital of Hanoi. With
the lifting of a United States embargo in 1994, foreign
investors began investing in Vietnam. Modern high-
rises and construction cranes mark the landscapes of
both Saigon and Hanoi.
Now about 52 percent of the labor force works in the
primary sector in agriculture, forestry , and fisheries. The
primary sector includes such products as rice, coffee,
rubber, cotton, tea, peanuts, and fish and animal prod-
ucts. Vietnam is the world' is second largest coffee ex-
porter after Brazil. Land is being taken from hill people in
large swaths and planted with coffee and other export
crops such as pepper.
Mining is important as is the manufacture of cement
and fertilizers. Food processing and the textile and ap-
parel industries, which rely on cheap female labor from
the countryside, are also significant sectors of the econ-
omy . Some 30 percent of Vietnam' s exports are destined
for the United States and Japan.
Deep poverty has declined significantly , and Vietnam
is working to create jobs to meet the challenge of a labor

Figure 15-15
I came across this scene in the Red River Delta in northern Vietnam.
The two women are operating a bucket to lift water from a lower
to higher level in the rice paddies.
Photograph courtesy of B. A. Weightman.

force that is growing by more than a million people every
year. Fortunately , the country has attracted new invest-
ments in electronic components assembly . The Saigon
Hi-T ech Park has emerged as a technology hub bringing
together foreign investors with domestic companies and
research and training facilities. The goal is to replicate
the Taiwanese and Chinese strategy of moving beyond
mere assembly to link up foreign hi-tech investors with
their domestic suppliers such as Intel, and Japan' s Nidec
have invested in the Park. Another such high-tech park
is being developed on the outskirts of Hanoi.
Meanwhile, the global recession has hurt the coun-
try' s export-oriented economy with GDP growing less
than the 7 percent per annum average achieved during the
last decade. Exports fell 10 percent in 2009, prompting the
government to use stimulus spending and a subsidized