VN News (Apr. 9, 1997)

[Vu Thanh Ca <vuca@envi.env.civil.saitama-u.ac.jp>]

April 09: Vietnamese Newspapers Highlights - April 9, 1997 
April 09: Rubin Comes To Vietnam Bearing A Message, No Gifts
April 09: Corruption: Name of the game in  Vietnam 
April 09: Chinese defence minister meets Vietnamese military delegation
April 09: Vietnam Prime Minister Orders Better Information Flow 
April 09: Rubin Asked To Help Vietnam Cope With Agent Orange Legacy
April 09: Vietnam's revolutionary expressway hits potholes
April 09: China, Vietnam end first day of talks on sea dispute
April 09: Vietnam war bomb kills seven at school

Wednesday - Apr 09, 1997 

Vietnamese Newspapers Highlights - April 9, 1997

Hanoi (VNA) - Highlights of Vietnam's daily newspapers today:

NHAN DAN:

1. National Assembly deputies to the 11th NA session
yesterday discussed in groups some major construction projects.
QUAN DOI NHAN DAN:<P>1. An interview granted by the Army daily paper with the
visiting US Secretary of the Treasury, Mr Robert Rubin, on economic
cooperation, particularly trade relations, between the United States and 
Vietnam. 

VIETNAM NEWS:

1. The national Assembly is expected to pass  Vietnam's
first Trade Law next week.

2. The  Vietnam Industry & Motor Exhibition '97 opened here
yesterday with the participation of more than 90 companies from 20
countries. 

HANOI MOI:

1. A free-of-charge clinic for poor children was
inaugurated here yesterday by the Xanh Pon Hospital and the Vietnam
Child Protection Fund.


Wednesday - Apr 09, 1997 

Rubin Comes To Vietnam Bearing A Message, No Gifts

Ho Chi Minh City (AP)  -- U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin sped through
a series of high-level meetings with Vietnam's political and economic
leaders to outline the conditions necessary for access to U.S. financial
support.</p>
He did it without taking a ride in 'the shinny black Cadillac.' That's the
one diplomats say Vietnam has carefully kept in good working order in case
it wants to take U.S. officials for a little spin down memory lane.</p>
You see, U.S. officials were worried that if they weren't careful, and
indeed they were, they might've exposed Rubin to the potential embarrassment
of riding in the limousine that reputedly took Washington's ambassador to
Tan Son Nhat Airport as Saigon fell in April 1975.</p>
The Treasury secretary's meetings with Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, Finance
Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung and Communist Party chief Do Muoi were bracketed
with press photo ops. The old Cadillac was one photograph U.S. officials
wanted to make sure wasn't in the complimentary album presented to Rubin at
the end of his two-day visit.</p>
Rubin, well aware that U.S.-Vietnam ties are at the stage where symbolism is
everything - even for critics of the administration's Asia policies - was
dashed by a motorcade around Hanoi and the former Saigon in
government-supplied, but less than symbolic American-made sedans.</p>
That gave Rubin, a 58-year-old former New York investment banker turned top
economic policy maker, time to focus on the message he had come to Vietnam
to deliver: Market economies work and you - Vietnam - need reforms to make
sure you have one.</p>
Rubin's doctrine, repeated throughout a three-nation tour that took him
through Tokyo, the Philippines and on to Vietnam, is that efficient and
sound financial and capital markets, when backed by appropriate
macroeconomic policies and legal regimes, will help nations like Vietnam
cope with development by attracting and retaining capital for growth.</p>
By Rubin's admission, this wasn't the news the Vietnamese wanted to hear
during the first visit of a U.S. Treasury secretary in the post-Vietnam war
period. They're wondering where the aid money is nearly three years after
President Clinton began a 'normalization' process by lifting a nearly
22-year-old trade embargo in 1994.</p>
'I get a sense of tremendous desire to move ahead,' Rubin said of the
process that had gained pace when diplomatic relations were restored in July
1995, only to slow to something resembling a crawl by the time the 1996
presidential election year rolled around in the U.S. 'A couple of people
expressed a desire for us to move quickly,' Rubin acknowledged.</p>
It will take time, he said. 'Government isn't a monument to alacrity.' That
its not, and Rubin didn't appear to make any promises to Vietnam's economic
and political leaders other than to try to speed up efforts in Washington
providing Hanoi holds up its end of the bargain.</p>
For Vietnamese officials, the brass ring is Export-Import Bank credit, loans
and political risk insurance from the Overseas Private Investment Corp., and
level treatment on tariff rates through most favored nation (MFN) status,
which really amounts to treating Vietnam's goods the same as mostly all
other countries that trade with the U.S.</p>
With an estimated $42 billion in infrastructure needs over the next three
years, half of which the government hopes to fund from external sources,
authorities are keen on lining up credit from the U.S., which is only
providing a trickle of money, largely through humanitarian aid.</p>
A $145 million debt-rescheduling agreement inked on Monday by Rubin and his
Vietnamese counterpart, Finance Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung, lays some
groundwork for fresh credits once a number of other U.S. requirements have
been met, prominently a bilateral trade agreement on open markets and
offering protections to U.S. intellectual property and the like.</p>
The timing of a broad trade agreement remains unclear, U.S. officials say.
Negotiations have been piecemeal since the U.S. put forth an initial trade
agreement outline in May 1996 and then began presenting Vietnam a draft
trade pact one chapter at a time. The last chapter, which covers many of the
investment issues raised by Rubin publicly and in private, was presented
less than three weeks ago to Hanoi.</p>
Rubin's visit, U.S. officials hope, will create momentum for more rapid
progress than has been seen so far in these talks. 'He certainly wants them
to know that he has been a successful investment banker and all investment
bankers want the things he does,' an aide says.</p>
A multi-agency team from Washington is due in Hanoi within a few days to
resume negotiations over what Rubin called 'a full package' covering
investment, services trade, copyright protections, tariffs and broader
market access issues.</p>
The Vietnamese appear uneasy and maybe a little distrustful.
Appearing Monday before a U.S.-Vietnam trade group, Rubin was questioned why
the U.S. couldn't provide larger and more rapid support to Vietnam like it
did with a $20 billion pledge to Mexico in 1995.</p>
Not an outrageous question to ask if you're wondering about U.S. aid and
credit. Rubin offered something of a routine throw cold water-on-it response
by noting how Mexico was unique, the effort was easy to pull off, and any
similar U.S. aid would likely face significant political hurdles in
Washington.</p>
What Rubin didn't know was his inquisitor - selected randomly by the
secretary from an audience of nearly 400 - was one of the Vietnamese
officials who attended a dinner hosted Sunday night by Finance Minister Hung
in the Treasury secretary's honor, officials say.</p>
U.S. trade officials also note Vietnam has for months been shopping some of
Washington's market-opening proposals around to various governments to find
out if the U.S. is being truthful when it says the terms are based on World
Trade Organization (WTO) standards.</p>
While WTO membership is part of the Vietnamese government's gameplan, some
U.S. trade officials fell Hanoi is checking the trade terms offered because
of strong distrust. Rubin, however, doesn't see it that way.</p>
Double checking is what he views it as, which is likely a prudent thing to
do, particularly if you aren't that familiar with the rules of the
international economic road. 'That's what I would do,' he said. 'I would
want to make sure I'm getting the best deal possible.'</p>
The fundamental issues surround basic trading rights for U.S. companies and
financial institutions, an issue that Rubin raised during his tour. That
means breaking the dominance of state enterprises and lifting a range of
import quotas and licensing requirements.</p>
Tariffs imposed by Vietnam aren't seen as the chief barrier to market
access, but the U.S. is also looking for Vietnam to create a more
transparent, and what some trade officials say, should be a more rational
tariff system.</p>
The Treasury secretary took some time out to visit villages outside Hanoi
and Ho Chi Minh City, including a World Bank project aimed at bolstering
primary education for children of laborers in ports and industrial plants
along a section of the Saigon River.</p>
Rubin remarked after a particularly bumpy motorcade ride along back roads
west of Hanoi that he could see 'the centuries peeling back.' And at his
destination, Bat Trang, a village that for centuries has produced ceramic
goods, he mused how a modern high-rise community could at some time replace
the village's ramshackle brick-and-cement dwellings if Vietnam pursued a
more aggressive market-oriented strategy. 'This is all going to change
someday,' he said.</p>
But even in the lighter moments of his tour, Rubin made clear he is ever
mindful of the dangers of looking silly in Vietnam. As he toured Hanoi's
Temple of Literature, which was a leading university for nearly 700 years, a
large mushroom-shaped straw hat was placed on his head by one of the
temple's musical performers.</p>
It was amusing for a moment. But he remarked later that the incident
reminded him of Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Dukakis's fateful
photographs from a 1988 ride in a U.S. Army tank. 'You remember Dukakis in
the tank with the hat on?' he told the U.S.-Vietnam Trade Council. 'One of
the things I've learned in this business is not to let yourself get
photographed wearing a hat.'

Wednesday - Apr 09, 1997

 Corruption: Name of the game in Vietnam 

The Daily Yomiuri / Yomiuri Shimbun

Hanoi -- At the  Hanoi Municipal People's Court on Feb. 22, a former civil
court deputy judge of the Supreme People's Court stood not as a symbol of
justice, but as a defendant accused of accepting a bribe.

According to Lao Dong, a bulletin of the  Vietnam Labor Confederation,
prosecutors sought a suspended prison sentence of between 30 months and three
years for Bui Van Tham, and a sentence of between six and eight years for the
woman who allegedly bribed him. When a prosecutor read out the demands, those
in the gallery booed, calling for heavier punishment of Tham.

After a lengthy discussion, the judges gave Tham two years in prison
without probation. The woman got a three-year term that was suspended.

According to the ruling, Tham received 500 dollars in cash and 3,500
dollars in gold to render a favorable ruling for the Ho Chi Minh City woman,
who had lost a case concerning the ownership of a house.

Corruption among members of the Communist Party and government officials
has become one of  Vietnam's biggest social problems as the country pushes
ahead with economic reforms and open-door policies.

The prosecution's lenient demands concerning the former judge and the
response of those in the gallery illustrate the authorities' lukewarm stance
on graft and the people's anger at corruption.

In 1994, the government singled out corruption as one of the "four
dangers" facing the country--along with "peaceful evolution" or the collapse
of socialism through peaceful means--thus demonstrating its determination to
tackle the problem.

However, according to a national audit, at least 4,900 corruption and
bribery cases cost the state 1.6 trillion dong (about 16 billion yen) over the
three years since 1994. With the average per capita income being only 3
million dong, this represents a huge drain on the economy and bodes ill for
the country's goal of joining the circle of industrialized nations by 2020.

Graft is widespread throughout  Vietnam, from top jurists like Tham to
traffic police.

A Vietnamese recently caught driving a motorcycle the wrong way on a
one-way street in  Hanoi got some "advice." A policeman whispered that, for
50,000 dong, the offense could be overlooked. As a ticket would cost 200,000
dong, the man took the advice.

In what is believed to be the country's largest corruption case, the
former president of a state-run trading company managed by a suborganization
of the Ho Chi Minh City Communist Party Committee was charged with embezzling
293 billion dong. The former president and three others were sentenced to
death.

Some officials have been charged with accepting bribes from foreign
investors.

Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet told the parliament last autumn that there is
no sign of corruption abating, a problem that poses an immediate obstacle to
the country's development. He went on to say, "Corruption is now a national
vice and constitutes internal betrayal."

A sense of crisis runs deep in the Communist Party because its failure to
eliminate corruption is eroding people's trust and could shake the foundation
of its monopoly on power. With the elimination of graft a top priority this
year, the government plans to introduce an anticorruption ordinance for the
first time.

Convened on April 2 for a monthlong session, the parliament is debating a
bill to tighten the criminal code as well as the draft ordinance against
corruption.

Under the ordinance, a public servant accepting 300 million dong or more
in bribes or engaging in irregularities causing equivalent damage would be
sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Public servants would be banned from
running a private firm and making deposits in foreign banks, and be obliged to
disclose their assets.

However, some say it is difficult for the country to deal with the
widespread graft because it is a structural problem brought on by the shift
from a planned economy to a market economy.

In this transition phase, public agencies and state-run firms must run
their institutions on their own. However, the government cannot provide
sufficient salaries. Low salaries drive them to engage in irregular practices
to make ends meet, said a local reporter who follows corruption cases.

"The average monthly salary of a civil servant is about 500,000 dong.
Even party General Secretary Do Muoi receives only 1.2 million dong. To
maintain a decent standard of living, many officials must resort to
moonlighting," he said.

"Those who receive bribes are protected by their bosses, and in some
cases they are the very people calling for the elimination of corruption," he
said.


Wednesday - Apr 09, 1997 

Chinese defence minister meets Vietnamese military delegation

BEIJING (AFP) - Chinese Defence Minister Chi
Haotian told a visiting Vietnamese military delegation here
Wednesday that the development of Sino-Vietnamese ties
required a "far-sighted" approach from both sides. 

Chi's talks with Dao Trong Lich -- the delegation head and
commander of the Second Military Area in Vietnam --
coincided with expert-level negotiations between the two
countries in Beijing on a territorial dispute in the
oil-rich South China Sea. 

China and Vietnam "should be far-sighted and consider the
overall situation of bilateral relations to promote
friendship and cooperation," Chi was quoted as saying by
the Xinhua news agency. 

"Both countries share a common belief and common goals, and
both are faced with the challenge of securing peace and
development," he added. 

For his part, Dao voiced Vietnam's desire for increased
military exchanges and cooperation at all levels. 

China and Vietnam began two days of separate, expert level
talks here Wednesday, arranged at Vietnam's request after
the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) deployed the
exploratory Kantan III oil rig in a disputed sea area on
March 7. 

China and Vietnam have twice run into territorial disputes
in the South China Sea, first in 1974 over the Paracel
Islands and again in 1988 over the Spratly Islands.

Wednesday - Apr 09, 1997

Vietnam Prime Minister Orders Better Information Flow 

Hanoi (DJ) -- Vietnamese Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet has issued orders to
improve the government's notoriously weak information flow, according to an
official media report Wednesday.</p>
'Many regulations haven't yet been implemented or well implemented,
especially with respect to information, reports and meetings,' the Communist
Party newspaper Nhan Dan (The People) quoted Kiet's instruction as saying.</p>
The Prime Minister ordered ministers and a variety of other government
officials to carry out existing rules on the issuance of legal documents,
reports and other information.</p>
Additionally, during the second quarter of 1997, the government will issue a
statute on information supply and on government spokesmen, Nhan Dan said.</p>
Last week, in a speech to Vietnam's legislature, Kiet criticized the poor
dissemination of information within the government.</p>
It's not only Kiet who is concerned with the subject. One of the most
frequent complaints of foreign investors in Vietnam is the difficulty of
gaining accurate, timely and consistent information from officials.</p>
Bureaucrats at all levels are generally unwilling to speak with outsiders,
and a vast amount of information that in many other places would be regarded
as public is treated as secret in Vietnam. In early March, the central bank
moved to clamp down on reporting of so-called banking secrets.</p>
The Nhan Dan article didn't indicate, however, whether the measures to
improve government communication are intended only to be internal, or also
will apply to the distribution of information to the general public.


Wednesday - Apr 09, 1997 

Rubin Asked To Help Vietnam Cope With Agent Orange Legacy

Ho Chi Minh City (AP)--The Communist Party chief asked U.S. Treasury
Secretary Robert Rubin to help Vietnam cope with the wartime legacy of Agent
Orange.</p>
Rubin met with Do Muoi on Tuesday, the final day of his three-day visit to
Vietnam. The contents of the meeting were made public today by Vietnam's
tightly controlled media.</p>
''The use of the chemical still affects its victims 22 years after the end
of the war,'' Muoi was quoted as saying by the English-language Vietnam
News.</p>
U.S. forces dumped Agent Orange, a chemical defoliant, on wide tracts of
Vietnamese territory, trying to clear away the canopy of foliage under which
they suspected communist guerrillas sought shelter.</p>
Since then, a growing number of reports have raised questions about the
longterm health effects on humans and wildlife exposed to Agent Orange.</p>
It was not clear what kind of help Muoi was requesting, but Vietnamese
officials in the past have suggested the U.S. should provide financial
assistance for people they say are suffering from side effects of Agent
Orange.</p>
Vietnamese officials say Agent Orange has been the cause of countless birth
defects in children born to parents exposed to the chemical.</p>
Scientists have offered no evidence linking children's defects to Agent
Orange, but American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians directly exposed to
the chemical later have complained of cancer and other health problems.</p>
A prominent U.S. physician studying the effects of the chemical on people
has been unable to compile data collected in Vietnam two years ago.</p>
Research data, blood samples and food samples collected by Dr. Arnold
Schecter were seized by customs officials in 1995 at Noi Bai International
Airport in the capital, Hanoi.
 

Wednesday - Apr 09, 1997 

Vietnam's revolutionary expressway hits potholes

Hanoi (Reuter) - Vietnam's ambitious plans to rekindle revolutionary fervour
with a new north-south expressway appeared to have hit obstacles on
Wednesday as delegates to the National Assembly began questioning the
project's viability.

In a rare sign of muscle-flexing, members of the communist country's
traditionally acquiescent legislature were quoted by state dailies calling
for a thorough examination of the costs and need for the road.

``Most deputies of Ho Chi Minh City, Haiphong and Quang Ninh expressed their
concern over the feasibility ... some even voiced their doubts about the
economic efficiency of this proposed artery route,'' the Saigon Times daily
reported in its lead story on Wednesday.

The north-south expressway was first announced in a speech by Prime Minister
Vo Van Kiet earlier this year.

The plan calls for vast labour teams comprising youth volunteers and
national service conscripts to carve out a route through 1,800 km (1,100
miles) of jungle and mountain terrain down the country's sparsely populated
western spine.

Government officials have spoken of millions of workers being involved on a
route which will traverse parts of the Ho Chi Minh trail -- a wartime
network of paths and roads used to supply ordnance and men from North
Vietnam to the South.

Costs have been put at about $5.5 billion, although various cut-price
alternatives have also been mulled. A group of youth volunteers is set to
walk down the route in May, marking late president Ho Chi Minh's birthday.

But economists and analysts have been less enthusiastic, some condemning the
project on the basis of international labour concerns.

Wednesday's reports of questioning by National Assembly delegates, however,
marked the first time that publicly aired criticism of the project has
emerged from government-related circles.

Vietnam's creaking transport infrastructure, a legacy of decades of war and
poverty, is a major concern for Hanoi and potential investors.

A single narrow-gauge rail line currently links Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
The main existing north-south artery, National Highway One, for the most
part remains a bumpy narrow-track road running down the central coast. Both
routes are regularly severed during the annual storm season.

Wednesday's state media said National Assembly deputies asked why further
efforts were not being put into upgrading these existing routes and called
for a report on the project to be presented to the assembly so that
delegates could judge its true worth.

``They (proposals such as this) are big-scale projects which require lots of
capital,'' the Communist Party's Nhan Dan newspaper said. ``They will have a
big impact on the budget balance and require careful evaluation.''


Wednesday - Apr 09, 1997 

China, Vietnam end first day of talks on sea dispute

BEIJING  (AFP) - Expert-level negotiators from
China and Vietnam concluded their first day of talks
Wednesday on a territorial dispute in the oil-rich South
China Sea, foreign ministry sources here said. 

Although the sources revealed no details of the talks, a
China Daily article also published Wednesday indicated that
Beijing's territorial claims were intractable even though
China had agreed to discussions with Vietnam. 

The two days of discussions, aimed at solving a potentially
troublesome dispute over contested waters were arranged at
Vietnam's request after the China National Offshore Oil
Corp. (CNOOC) deployed the exploratory Kantan III oil rig
in a disputed sea area on March 7. 

China and Vietnam have twice run into territorial disputes
in the South China Sea, first in 1974 over the Paracel
islands and again in 1988 over the Spratly Islands.

Further trouble brewed when China signed an exploration
agreement with the US-based Crestone Energy Corp. in 1992
to drill for oil near the Spratlys. 

But as the talks began, the China Daily quoted senior
Chinese economists as saying that exploitation of natural
resources in the disputed South China Sea was essential for
China's economic growth. 

"The South China Sea, where the Nansha (Spratly) islands
are located, constitutes more than one-third of China's sea
territory and is closely related to the future of the
China's economy next century," said Pan Shiying from the
State Council's Development and Research Centre.

Wang Yan, general manager of CNOOC -- which dispatched the
Kantan III rig to contested waters -- pledged to boost
production in the region and said his target was an annual
10 billion cubic metres (13 billion cubic yards) of natural
gas from China's territorial waters.

"The importance of sea territory to the Chinese economy,
especially along with the shrinking of arable lands
(because of economic construction) should lead the whole
nation to be concerned about developing our sea resources,"
said Gao Heng, senior research fellow at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences. 

Vietnam's delegation was led by Nguyen Ba Son, deputy
director of the International Law and Treaties Department
in Hanoi's Foreign Ministry, and the head of China's team
was Li Yanduan, section chief of the Treaties and Law
Department in the Foreign Ministry. 

The Kantan III rig was drilling in a disputed zone just
south of the Gulf of Tonkin, which is almost equidistant
from the central-Vietnamese coast and the Chinese island of
Hainan, and is believed to be rich in natural gas. <p> 

China did not announce its removal until Monday, two days
before the talks began.

Wednesday - Apr 09, 1997 

Vietnam war bomb kills seven at school

HANOI  (AFP) - A cluster bomb left over from the
Vietnam war has exploded killing seven children and
injuring 34 as they left their school, newspapers reported
Wednesday. 

The explosion went off Monday at a school in the northern
province of Nghe An, the Nhan Dan communist party daily
said. 

The bomb was buried in the courtyard and went off after a
heavy vibration shook the ground. The region suffered heavy
bombing by the US air force during the war which finished
in 1975. 

Bombs and ammunition left on former battle sites have
killed hundreds of people in Vietnam since the war ended.