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Vietnam ECONOMIC ROLES OF THE PARTY AND THE GOVERNMENT
The Vietnamese economy is shaped primarily by the VCP through
the plenary sessions of the Central Committee and national
congresses. The party plays a leading role in establishing the
foundations and principles of communism, mapping strategies for
economic development, setting growth targets, and launching
reforms.
Planning is a key characteristic of centralized, communist
economies, and one plan established for the entire country
normally contains detailed economic development guidelines for
all its regions. According to Vietnamese economist Vo Nhan Tri,
Vietnam's post-reunification economy was in a "period of
transition to socialism." The process was described as consisting
of three phases. The first phase, from 1976 through 1980,
incorporated the Second Five-Year Plan (1976-80)--the First FiveYear Plan (1960-65) applied to North Vietnam only. The second
phase, called "socialist industrialization," was divided into two
stages: from 1981 through 1990 and from 1991 through 2005. The
third phase, covering the years 2006 through 2010, was to be time
allotted to "perfect" the transition.
The party's goal was to unify the economic system of the
entire country under communism. Steps were taken to implement
this goal at the long-delayed Fourth National Party Congress,
convened in December 1976, when the party adopted the Second
Five-Year Plan and defined both its "line of socialist
revolution" and its "line of building a socialist economy." The
next two congresses, held in March 1982 and December 1986,
respectively, reiterated this long-term communist objective and
approved the five-year plans designed to guide the development of
the Vietnamese economy at each specific stage of the communist
revolution.
Data as of December 1987
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