Riding on the back of a motorbike is probably the best way to see Vietnam’s capital. The hair-raising experience lets you feel the energy on the street, the incessant buzz of small businesses, the informal sidewalk kitchens, and the surprisingly large numbers of Western tourists gawking at the fading yellow French colonial architecture. Compared to other economies in Asia, Vietnam seems a sure growth bet for the next quarter century. Yet capitalizing on that potential will task the government even as it eyes closer relations with its erstwhile enemy, the United States.
The plethora of goods, restaurants, and crowds make it easy to forget this is still a Communist-run country. Everywhere one looks, newlyweds in their wedding best pose for pictures, dotting major parks or central Hoan Kiem Lake, or clustering in front of the majestic Opera House. Officials in Vietnam seem genuinely interested in dialogue, while people on the street are invariably helpful. They pepper a visitor with questions, seeking answers about development or trying to understand what’s going on in America.
This country of 87 million has a median age of 27 years, and over 60 million of its people are between the ages of 15 and 65. Its nominal GDP per capita, according to the World Bank, was $1,224 in 2010, about a quarter of the size of China’s, but has been growing rapidly over the past decade thanks to steady growth in GDP, including a 6.8 percent growth rate in 2010. Even though China is Vietnam’s largest trade partner, trade between Vietnam and the United States increased more than six-fold from 2002 to 2010, to $18.6 billion.
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