It seems that the foreign investment community has discovered Vietnam. That's a good thing. Mildly unsettling, however, is the media's hyperbolic rhetoric about Vietnamese economic growth. It feels just a bit frothy. Check out some of the hyped stories that Matt Powell, Hanoi real estate maven, lists in his excellent blog Target: Vietnam.
Business is indeed booming in Vietnam. But will it live up to all the rhetoric? Maybe -- weigh the evidence and decide for yourself.
- Jon Hoff has a great post about office buildings sprouting like mushrooms throughout Saigon in a recent entry of his blog It's the Final Word. Well, maybe not quite like mushrooms, but there are an awful lot of active construction sites for swanky office towers.
- Dan Harris, international attorney and prolific author of the China Law Blog, has written several posts about Vietnamese growth and its similarities or dissimilarities to China. Two insightful ones are Vietnam -- Tastes Like China Lite and China is the Next China, Now; Vietnam May Be The Next China Someday.
- Matt Powell cites the Deputy General Director of Chesterton Petty Vietnam speaking about positive trends in the Vietnam property market in this post.
- VietnamWorks' quarterly Employment Indicator Report is a meaningful gauge of strong growth in labor demand. Bear in mind, however, that growth in VietnamWorks job and resume statistics is not only a function of Vietnam's economic growth, but also of VietnamWorks' marketing and overall growth strategy.
- Check out a post I wrote back in May and the accompanying WSJ article -- Vietnam: Hype or Reality?