Executive Education Programs

Vietnam's transitional economy is in a state of some distress. A key structural issue is an imbalance in the corporate community profile, typified by a relatively small number of keiretsu-like state corporations at one end of the spectrum, and tens of thousands of small and young SMEs at the other end.  In the middle is relatively little – sparsely populated by exceptions to the general rule.  Vietnam needs to find a way of catalyzing growth in this 'elusive middle'.

The development banking model is widely seen as passé. Few of the development financial institutions (DFIs) created in the post World War II years survive today, having either been wound up or transformed into other types of financial intermediaries. A similar debate has been ongoing in India, but interestingly, while many of the older DFIs in India have either transformed themselves or been wound up, the government has as recently as 2006 set up one more such entity.

The Olympic Games have a history of at times being followed by economic recessions in host countries. These “post-Olympic economic blues” have been the result of massive new infrastructure investments undertaken before the Games, followed by a sudden pause in such investments. This “pause” in growth is unlikely to happen in China: the post-Olympic Chinese economy is likely to continue its rapid and sustained growth. Furthermore, the Beijing Olympics could serve as a catalyst for improving the quality of China’s development.

The performance and growing global importance of East Asia is well documented. Yet the story of East Asia’s re-emergence in the 10 years since the Asian Crisis is one of increasing regional integration and cooperation that is driving the region’s growth and development. The challenge that goes beyond East Asia is one of building cooperative regionalism, consistent with an open and expanding global economy. From this perspective, East Asian regional cooperation and integration is still a work in progress.