Week 9 - Alvin Du

I've always been aware that Vietnam suffered from bad debt, but now the stagnant growth of the country has been brought to light. Nicholas Kaldor's second law of growth is effective in that it shows the correlation between the rate of manufacturing output and labour productivity growth. I can understand why small farmers are more adept on increasing volumes than improving quality since their main focus is to increase their revenue especially at the beginning of their businesses. I was surprised that the cause of Vietnam's current account deficits is a large and growing trade deficit with China, considering that China's GDP has eased since 2011. Failure of Vietnamese firms to capitalize on export growth seems to be the root of slow growth of labor productivity. I was not aware of Singapore's slow growth in the past since the country seems to always be on the rise compared to the Philippines and Vietnam. Vietnam's middle class seems to be growing more rapidly than anywhere in Asia. A suggested strategy for reform was to implement the retention of technicians and managers, but it seems unlikely that Vietnamese companies or businesses hire many new technicians and managers when these positions have already been filled.