According to the Financial Times this morning “Vietnam’s economy is expected to maintain rapid growth in the year ahead, after its gross domestic product last year expanded 8.45 per cent – the fastest pace of growth in nearly a decade.” This is to be added to the fact that “Economic growth in Vietnam, which averaged about 7 per cent between 2000 and 2004, has been driven in recent years largely by surging exports, after the signing of a long-anticipated bilateral trade agreement with the US in 2001″.

Now let’s take a quick look at the charts, yes, that’s it: median age 25.51, fertility 2.2 , life expectancy 70.61. The median age is still a little low for achieving complete take-off, but it is certainly in at the bottom end of the ‘new tigers’ range, and with fertility down to 2.2 and life expectancy already comparatively high, that median age looks set to rise rapidly.

Now Hektor will undoubtedly accuse me of more crass demographic determinism. This I refute. I simply suggest that there is a very interesting correlation between these three indicators and economic take-off (as in, show me the cases where this doesn’t apply). That such as co-incidence index may only be a necessary and not a sufficient condition, is I think illustrated by cases like N Korea, Cuba, and now I think (thanks to the unfortunate recent turn in events) Iran where institutional lock-in prevents the economic flexibilisation and global opening which is so necessary to achieve full lift-off. More typically I would say that this institutional-opening process was endogenous to the fertility/life expectancy revolution, which is what makes it all the more interesting to try and understand what it is that drives this.

Nonetheless, one thing is clear: Vietnam is now on the ramp. Now what was that old Jimmy Cliff number? Wouldn’t it have been better put, oh why are we always in the right place at the wrong time?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 4th, 2006 at 10:02 am and is filed under A Fistful Of Euros, Economics and demography. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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The results of the latest GfK’s consumer confidence survey are just in. The results are hardly a surprise. (Btw there is a good discussion of consumption in Germany in this post and comments):

Consumer confidence in Germany, Europe’s largest economy, fell for a second month in three as Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government decided to raise sales tax.

Higher energy costs are leaving German shoppers with less money to spend in the holiday season while the prospect of a sales tax increase and an 11.6 percent jobless rate dent sentiment. With the European Central Bank poised to raise interest rates as soon as this week, increased borrowing costs will also crimp spending.

Incidentally Wolfgang Munchau in the FT today states that the recent announcement by Jean-Claude Trichet that the ECB was going to raise eurozone rates “must rank as one of the most bizarre monetary policy decisions of recent times”!

Who am I to disagree.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 28th, 2005 at 11:23 am and is filed under A Few Euros More, Economics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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