VN news (June 8)

[Dam Son <son@fermi.phys.washington.edu>]

Soccer-Turkmenistan beat Vietnam in World Cup qualifier
Cambodia's Hun Sen defends pro-Vietnam monuments
Vietnam upholds death penalty in biggest fraud trial
Vietnam wobbles as reform drive hits hurdles

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Soccer-Turkmenistan beat Vietnam in World Cup qualifier

HANOI, June 8 (Reuter) - Turkmenistan beat Vietnam 4-0 (halftime 2-0) in
their World Cup Asian zone group eight qualifying match on Sunday. 

Scorers: Agaev 15, 59, 63 penalty, Broshin 20.

Standings     P   W   D   L   F   A  Pts
China         4   4   0   0   9   2  12
Tajikistan    4   3   0   1  10   2   9
Turkmenistan  5   2   0   3   8   8   6
Vietnam       5   0   0   5   2  17   0

Remaining matches: June 8 China v Tajikistan, June 22 China v Vietnam,
Tajikistan v Turkmenistan. 
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Cambodia's Hun Sen defends pro-Vietnam monuments

PHNOM PENH, June 8 (Reuter) - Cambodian Co-Premier Hun Sen on Sunday
warned that removing pro-Vietnam monuments would be an ill-advised attempt
to wipe out the memory of the brutal Khmer Rouge who were ousted by
invading Vietnamese forces almost 20 years ago. 

Hun Sen's coalition partner, Co-Premier Prince Norodom Ranariddh, on
Tuesday said a Khmer-Vietnam friendship statue in Phnom Penh had stood for
too long and vowed to remove it if he won elections next year. 

Ranariddh's comments followed a bomb blast at a memorial to Vietnamese war
dead in the southern port of Sihanoukville. 

Many Cambodians harbour deep suspicions of their eastern neighbour.
Analysts say Ranariddh has seized on anti-Vietnamese sentiment to boost
his political position vis-a-vis Hun Sen, with whom he shares power in an
increasingly acrimonious coalition government. 

Hun Sen, in a speech broadcast on local radio, said the monuments should
remain, warning any attempt to remove them was "an attempt to destroy the
criminal evidence of the genocidal (Khmer Rouge) regime". 

The monuments in Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville were erected after Vietnam's
late 1978 invasion of Cambodia when Vietnamese forces and members of the
Cambodian opposition drove the brutal Khmer Rouge from power. 

Vietnamese forces remained in Cambodia until late 1989. 

Hun Sen said the attacks on the monuments were an attempt to legitimise
Khmer Rouge hardliners, who are rumoured to be in peace talks with
military officials loyal to Ranariddh. 

Hun Sen fled to Vietnam after breaking with the Khmer Rouge in the
mid-1970s. He returned with the 1978 Vietnamese invasion force and led the
Hanoi-backed government that ruled until a 1991 peace pact paved the way
for the 1993 U.N.-run polls. 

He urged Cambodians not to forget the 1975-1979 Khmer Rouge "killing
fields" rule, which left more than one million Cambodians dead from
murder, overwork, malnutrition, torture or disease. 
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Vietnam upholds death penalty in biggest fraud trial 

HANOI (AFP) - A Vietnam court has upheld one of two death sentences
imposed in the country's largest fraud trial, it was reported here Sunday. 

Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet had personally demanded an "exemplary sentence"
in the scandal in which 47 banks, state enterprises and private companies
were swindled out of 13 million dollars in Ho Chi Minh City. 

At the end of a five-day appeal hearing, the Supreme Court upheld Saturday
the death sentence imposed in January on Pham Ming Tong, accused of
"defrauding and appropriating socialist and individual properties," the
Communist Party newspaper Nhan Dan reported. 

Another accused, Nguyen Ngoc Tan, had his death sentence reduced to life
imprisonment. 

The court also upheld terms ranging from a two-year suspended sentence to
life imprisonment for four other accused. 

The main suspect in the case, Tran Xuan Hoa, a director of a private
company, fled Vietnam at the end of 1994 and has not been tried. 
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Vietnam wobbles as reform drive hits hurdles

By John Chalmers

HANOI, June 8 (Reuter) - For years, it seemed that Vietnamese economic
planners could hardly make a wrong move. 

The country's experiment in reform along market lines brought one of the
fastest economic growth rates in the world, lifted living standards off
the floor and led a once-pariah country back into the fold of nations. 

Now, more than a decade since that transformation began, the euphoria is
wearing thin. And the communist government is finding that cautious reform
no longer brings spectacular results. 

The warning signs have been mounting in recent months: high external
deficits, slowing foreign investment, falling asset values and debt
problems in both the banking industry and the sprawling state sector. 

"Considering the pragmatic approach that has characterised Vietnamese
economic policy during the past decades, there is little doubt that the
necessary reforms will eventually be achieved," says Ari Kokko of the
Stockholm School of Economics. 

"The main cause of concern is instead that things may have to get worse
before they get better," he wrote in a recent report. 

Kokko argued that more rapid and thorough changes in trade policy and
state-owned industry are needed to sustain growth, which has averaged
almost nine percent per year since 1992. 

Already the economy appears to be coming off the boil. 

Import growth has been sluggish this year, consumer prices have fallen
three months in a row, stockpiles of key commodities such as cement and
steel are accumulating and credit growth is slowing. 

Jean-Luc Bernasconi, an economist at the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP), estimates economic growth at 7-8 percent this year. That
may be lower than in recent years, but he says it is still a robust rate
and probably more sustainable than previous rates. 

Analysts say the real challenge for policymakers is not how to add zest to
the economy now -- but how to tackle systemic problems which could act as
a more serious and long-term drag on the economy in the future. 

Some of the necessary steps will be difficult and will require steady
nerves on the part of the government, which has until now enjoyed economic
gain without much pain. 

Take trade, where a deficit of around 16 percent of gross domestic product
(GDP) has prompted calls for increased import substitution and temporary
bans on the import of certain goods. 

Kokko says that although the government has declared that trade
liberalisation is a central element of its reform programme, there have
been precious few moves in that direction so far. 

And when trade barriers are eventually removed, the import substitution
investments of today will face crippling competition -- triggering
bankruptcies, lost capital and unemployment. 

Another problem area closely linked to the import substitution debate is
the state sector. 

Although reform ushered in private enterprise, state-owned industry
remains the economy's dominant force. However, the state sector is
staggering under massive debts, which in turn are threatening the
stability of the nascent banking system. 

Furthermore, the image of the country's banks and state-owned enterprises
have taken a beating in recent months -- a run of scandals and court cases
have underlined problems of corruption, cronyism, incompetence and a lack
of transparency. 

The Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry's vice president told a
business conference last week that she hoped income per head would grow
some 20-fold to $5,000 a year or more by 2020. 

But she was in no doubt of the hurdles that must be cleared. 

"Generally speaking, the economy is lacking competitiveness," said Pham
Chi Lan. "Elements of a market economy have not yet been fully
established. Administrative reform is not moving ahead at the same pace as
economic reform... Civil servants are weak and corruption is spreading." 
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