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Viet Nam at a Glance

A Human Development Overview

Rapid economic growth over the past two decades has resulted in a dramatic decrease in recorded poverty. The incidence of poverty, according to the international poverty line, dropped from 58 percent to 20 percent between 1993 and 2004. However, many households have risen barely above the poverty line and therefore remain vulnerable to falling back into poverty.

Growth has also been associated with an increase in inequality, particularly a widening rural-urban income gap as well as growing disparities from various forms of isolation, such as geographic, social, ethnic, and linguistic. Three regions account for more than two-thirds of Viet Nam’s poor: the Northern Uplands, Mekong Delta, and North Central Coast. Ethnic minorities, which comprise 14 percent of the population and live mainly in these remote upland areas, are disproportionately affected by poverty, representing almost 30  percent of the poor. About 90 percent of the poor live in the rural areas. Rural poverty bears most heavily in those farm households that have small landholdings, rely on informal credit with high interest rates, have limited access to markets for farm goods and lack off-farm employment. Providing -intensive off-farm employment calls for a strong promotion of the non-State business sector together with a removal of both explicit and implicit biases that favour the mostly capital-intensive SOEs.
Map of VIet Nam

Although GDP per capita is officially just over US$638, the country’s performance in terms of human development is favourable. This is reflected in the gradual increase of the human development index over the last decade, and summarizes the progress made in education, health and standard of living. Out of 177 countries around the globe, Viet Nam climbed from being 120 on the Human Development Index in 1995 to 108 in 2005. Life expectancy at birth is 71 years and the adult literacy rate is 94 percent (age 15 and above). The country nevertheless faces serious problems in education and health. School completion rates among ethnic minorities and girls remain relatively low. Malnutrition remains high, particularly among children under five, 33 percent of whom are underweight. The country also faces a number of re-emerging and new diseases such as tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS together with new typical life style diseases and a rising number of traffic accidents. There is a rapidly increasing HIV-epidemic in Viet Nam, more than 100 people get infected every day, and the number of people living with HIV more than doubled between 2000 and 2005, from approximately 122,000 to 263,000.



POPULATION                                             ECONOMY

HEALTH                                                      EDUCATION

POVERTY                                                   HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

(April 2006) 

POPULATION

(2006):  84.108 million 
Urban (2006): 27.1%
 Rural (2006): 72.9%

Annual population growth rate (2006):  1.21%
Population density (persons per square kilometre):  250.00
Land area (square kilometres): 331,114

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ECONOMY

GDP per capita (2005) : US$637.56
Real growth of GDP (2005):  8.4%
Annual average GDP growth rate (1994-2005) : 6.81%

Sectoral share of GDP (2005)
Agriculture: 20.89% 

Industry:  41.03%

Services:  38.08%

Exchange rate (average 2006) *
US$1 = Dong 15,964
  
Inflation (2006): 6.6%

Public Finance (central government, % of GDP at current market prices, 2004 est.) *
Revenues:  24%
Expenditures:25.6% Deficit:1.62%

Foreign Debt (percent of GDP, end 2005):  31%
Balance of payments in convertible currency (2006)
Exports (f.o.b.): US$39.60 billion
Imports (c.i.f.): US$44.41 billion
Trade Deficit: US$4.81 billion

Principal exports(2005): crude oil (23%), garments and textiles (15%), sea products (8%), footwear (9%), rice (4%), coffee (2%), others (39%).

Principal imports (2005): capital equipment (14%), refined petroleum (14%), textile (6%), steel (8%), cloth (6%); motorbikes (1%); electronic components (5%), fertilizers (2%), others (44%).

Principal export markets (2005): US (20.6%), Japan (13%), Australia (7.9%), China (7.3%), Singapore (5.2%), Germany (4.9%), UK (3.8%), Taiwan (China) (3%), Korea (2%), Netherlands (2%), others (30.3%).

Competitiveness, (Ranking out of 125countries, 2006): 77

Networked Readiness Index (Ranking out of 104 countries, 2005):  68

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SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT HEALTH

Life expectancy at birth (2004):  71 years

Men: 68.6 years
Women: 72.6 years

Under-five mortality rate (2004): 23/1,000
Child Malnutrition (percentage underweight) (2003):  33%
Fertility rate (births per woman, 2004): 2.3
Maternal Mortality Rates (deaths per 100,000 live births, 2002): 130

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EDUCATION

Adult literacy rate (2004) - total:  93.9%
Net primary school ratio (2004) – total:  96%
Net lower secondary school ratio (2003):  65%
Net upper secondary school ratio (2000):  38%

POVERTY

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Poverty (percentage poor, national poverty line, January 2002): 12.9%
Poverty (percentage poor, international poverty line, 2002):  29%
Food Poverty Line (percentage poor households, 2002 est.): 10.87

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Human development index (Ranking out of 177 countries, 2007): 105
Gender related development index (Ranking out of 157countries, 2007): 91
Human poverty index (Ranking out of 108 developing countries, 2007): 36

(Sources: Government Data, UNDP, WEF, IMF, UNICEF, EIU )

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