Into a market economy
At the 6th Congress of the Vietnamese Communist Party in December 1986 the Vietnamese government launched a bold new policy of social, economic and political reform under the rubric of
đổi mới (‘renovation’), aimed at transforming the old command economy into a market-based one. Since that time free enterprise has been encouraged and foreign investment and dollar-spending tourists welcomed.
The subsequent economic collapse of the Soviet Union and the consequent cessation of East Bloc aid which had for so many years helped to offset the effects of a crippling US embargo hastened this process. At the 7th Congress of 1991 the Vietnamese government’s commitment to đổi mới was strengthened, with planners agreeing to decentralise decision-making, cut back on consumer subsidy and introduce state-sector competition. Since that time Việt Nam has made considerable progress on the economic front; industrial production and output from the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors has increased and tourism has emerged as a major source of revenue which currently attracts over 2.5 million foreign visitors a year. In 2003 Việt Nam enjoyed Asia’s highest growth rate of 7.2 per cent.
For several years prior to 1986, leading figures in the Vietnamese arts community had been at the forefront of the movement for social, economic and political reform, yet ironically the changes which they helped to implement demanded a new economic realism, calling into question the ‘subsidy system’ (
hệ thống bao cấp) which guaranteed generous state funding for cultural activities yet provided little or no incentive for artists and arts organisations to connect with their audiences or manage their activities efficiently.
Accordingly during the past decade the drive towards the implementation of a market economy has had far-reaching consequences for the Vietnamese cultural sector. Salaries and retainers for key staff of state cultural agencies have remained, but operating budgets have been reduced and in some cases abolished. Consequently many government-subsidised cultural organisations have been obliged to scale down their personnel and overheads in order to cut costs; several have had to cease their operations altogether. The Vietnamese film industry has been particularly badly hit by reductions in government subsidy, coinciding as these have with the growing video industry and a new wave of competition from overseas.
In some areas of the arts đổi mới has opened up lucrative new avenues of opportunity, enabling entrepreneurs to open commercial art galleries and offering wider publishing opportunities to creative writers. But it is generally accepted that subsidy-reliant art forms such as the performing arts have suffered in its wake, for want of the necessary skills to adapt successfully to the new economic environment.
