¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ

THE FIRST and last thing that nearly every Vietnamese scientist or teacher
said to me was to please send English books and scientific publications.
For developing countries, which need science and technology to build infrastructures,
provide food and medicine, yet cannot pay for the literature, the request
is not unusual. The West’s policy of denying aid for Vietnam’s development,
because of its occupation of Kampuchea, has exacerbated the usual difficulties
of a poor country. The policy has held back development and limited contact
between Western and Vietnamese scientists. As a byproduct, the Vietnamese
have little access to the vast body of scientific literature published in
English.

Until recently, Vietnam itself made contact with Western scientists
difficult. Now the country sees the need for Western money, and is keen
for more contact, particularly with the US. Gradually, the government is
allowing freer contact between scientists and the West. Bach Hung Khang,
head of the Institute of Computer Science and Cybernetics in Hanoi, explained
to me that he had not given an interview to a Western journalist before.
‘The first effect of this greater freedom is that I can speak to you without
getting permission.’

The lack of scientific literature in Vietnam is conspicuous because
of the high educational level of people. Vietnam claims that of children
over the age of 15, 92 per cent are literate, an unusually high number for
a developing country, but symptomatic of the importance that communist countries
put on education. The country has an extensive network of scientific institutes,
some are the legacy of French colonialism. For the most part, these institutes
have few resources but employ highly educated people, who often study for
first and second degrees in the Soviet Union or Eastern bloc countries.
Very few go to Western Europe or the US. An exception is one of the best
institutes, the National Institute for Hygiene and Epidemiology in Hanoi,
which has extensive international links with the East and the West.

Vietnam views science and technology as crucial to its industrial and
economic development. The Vietnamese Academy of Science alone employs 2000
scientists. The academy and each government department have institutes under
their aegis, and the National State Committee for Science and Technology
controls still more, such as the Institute for Science Management. In the
political hierarchy, the academy and the state committee are roughly at
ministerial level. The state committee distributes the Vietnamese government’s
funds to the institutes and the academy, though the academy puts its funding
requirements directly to the prime minister. This organisation is similar
to that in the Soviet Union. The state committee also formulates policies
for the institutes.

Unfortunately, the scientists in these institutes earn so little that
they must use their time and equipment to earn extra cash rather than do
research. The state salary is between $8 and $16 per month at black market
rates ($1 = 6000 dong) and between $13 and $26 per month at the official
rate ($1 = 3800 dong). Everyone needs two jobs to survive. ‘In the biology
institute,’ says Han Manh Tien, director of the Consultancy Centre for Technology
Transfer and Investment (Concetti), ‘scientists make wine to supplement
their income.’ University teachers drive cyclos (a sort of bicycle taxi)
and doctors and nurses cook soup to sell in the hospitals.

Wars against the French and Americans have left Vietnam as the second
poorest country in the world. The country could not survive without the
Soviet Union’s money. In its guide to Soviet Military power, the Pentagon
estimates that in 1985 the USSR provided $8 billion in economic assistance
and that between 1978 and 1985 Moscow provided military aid totalling $9
billion. That money, however, is not enough. The few roads are poor and
deteriorating. Although the USSR is financing a large hydroelectric plant
in the north, it is not paying for a national grid to distribute the electricity.
The major cities, home to about 20 per cent of the population, now have
electricity, but power cuts are frequent. In Hanoi, the country’s capital,
many people get their water from communal taps buried in the pavements.
The ports are poorly equipped. In the smaller of the two ports in Haiphong
in the north, I saw only one fork-lift truck, and the access road is narrow
and full of potholes. One narrow-gauge railway links the north with the
south, and telecommunications are severely limited.

As in most poor countries, these problems are compounded by severe health
and nutritional problems, by a growing population and by poor statistical
information about the country’s resources and population, which makes planning
difficult. In the north, which has less arable land than the south, the
problems are more acute.

Now, with the planned withdrawal of its troops from Kampuchea, Vietnam
is looking to the West for investment, scientific collaboration and technology.
Diplomats from several countries, however, warn that Vietnam is not high
on the political agendas of their governments, and that aid is unlikely
to flow rapidly into Vietnam. What is more likely is that Western industry,
keen for a future share in what is now Asia’s largest unexploited market,
will step up its presence in the country. The deals the companies do will
include some form of aid. BP, for example, has signed a contract with PetroVietnam
to explore and exploit 15 000 square kilometres off the coast of central
Vietnam. The company has agreed to provide English language or technical
training for a few Vietnamese. BP’s solar energy division is also contemplating
schemes for solar-powered irrigation pumps in rural areas.

Vietnam’s planners know that they need to establish a framework so that
they can take full advantage of the technology once the West makes it available.
They also know that they need to establish scientific and technical priorities
internally to underpin their economic development. Nguyen Van Hieu, president
of the Vietnamese Academy of Science, says that these priorities are to
investigate the country’s national resources and develop life sciences.
He says: ‘We are looking at climate, mineral resources and the environment
to build a synthesised view of the country’s resources. We want to establish
a basis for a national programme for economic development and provide independent
advice to arbitrate between conflicting plans by different ministries.’
For example, the Ministry of Agriculture may want a particular crop, but
nationally and strategically it may be better to grow a forest in that area.
Although a national programme is essential, it runs into the immediate practical
problems of poor countries where local communities have specific and immediate
needs. One aid worker spoke of the mangrove trees that the Vietnamese are
chopping down for firewood. These same trees provide nutrients that feed
shrimps, so, as the mangroves are depleted, the shrimp catch will decrease.

Although theoretical plans and priorities exist, the Vietnamese have
enormous practical problems to overcome if they are to implement them. This
year, for example, the government has allocated about $9 million (at the
official exchange rate) for science. Vu Cao Dam, director of the Institute
of Science Management, cautioned: ‘This is only in the budget, you understand,
we can’t be sure of that amount.’ Another senior Vietnamese scientist said
that no one can know how much money will be available for science and technology.
‘The figures,’ he said, ‘are not consistent from year to year, and no one
knows how many dollars and roubles are flowing into the country, so we can’t
plan consistently from year to year.’

This confusion is symptomatic of much planning in Vietnam. Vietnamese
scientists and officials, aid workers and Western diplomats all say that
accurate statistics are almost impossible to find. The country does have
a General Statistical Office, but it produces population statistics by extrapolating
from a census carried out in 1979, which is generally accepted as inaccurate.
This upsets plans for health, agriculture and regional development. Even
current health programmes are not accurately monitored, because it is difficult
to collect data from the rural areas about, say, the number of people vaccinated.
At its most basic, this can be simply because there is no paper on which
to record information.

Until recently, Western diplomats say, the Vietnamese would not have
spoken frankly about financial problems. Even now, despite growing openness,
the frank discussion needed to deal with the country’s widespread problems
is not always encouraged. In February, Nguyen Van Linh, the general secretary
of the Vietnamese Communist Party, said that there was no room for an opposition
press in the country or for too much criticism of government policy.

One institute, affected alike by Vietnam’s earlier lack of openness
and by Western policies, is the Institute of Computer Science and Cybernetics.
Most of the institute’s scientists were trained in Vietnam or Eastern bloc
countries, which, in general, lag behind the West in computer sciences.
The institute is poorly equipped. It consists of a group of one-storey buildings
arranged around a small quad. Two rooms contain microcomputers, about as
many as could be found in a British secondary school. The most advanced
machine is an IBM PC AT compatible, which ‘friends’ gave to the institute
three years ago. Bach Hung is aware of the restraints placed on the transfer
of computers and electronics to communist countries, but says that he does
not want the latest models, just more computing power.

The institute’s lack of computing power has undermined a project to
catalogue the natural resources of Tay Nguyen, a coastal region in central
Vietnam. ‘It is an area that very little is known about,’ says Bach Hung.
The region is largely forested, with few people, and the institute was charged
with collating data about the province’s soils and geology so that the government
could decide which crops the land could support. Bach Hung’s group has now
submitted its reports to the government. He says: ‘We made a mathematical
model for planning development of the area, but we could have done much
better if we had more computing power.’ Limited computer power also affects
the institute’s work on a much-needed new census. This work is funded by
the UN Population Fund with advice from Australian demographers.

Now with the changing political situation, Bach Hung is looking forward
to collaboration with his Western peers. Currently, the main links are with
the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries, although he sends two or three
postgraduates to France each year. ‘Computer science is more highly developed
in the West,’ says Bach Hung. ‘I like the Soviet Union, but it is less advanced
in computer science than the West, and as a scientist I must be truthful.
I would like contact with the West, mainly the US and Britain.’ He believes
there is hope now for such contact. ‘Before last year, our policy was not
so open, and Western countries did not understand us.’

Any collaboration, however, would have to be at the West’s expense.
Vietnam cannot afford the air fare for scientists or the subscriptions to
journals and magazines. Each October, the National State Committee for Science
and Technology is allowed to subscribe to 10 journals. Bach Hung’s dream
is to receive literature from the West. ‘I receive scientific papers from
France, and this is very nice, but about 70 per cent of the literature on
computing science is in English, and I do not have access to this.’ He would
like to attend conferences in the West or give papers, but does not receive
the calls for papers.

The changing internal political situation is also affecting the country’s
agricultural development. Last year, the government changed policy, redistributing
land according to the number of able-bodied people in a family and allowing
farmers to make a profit. The government’s policy and that of the UN’s Food
and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is to introduce staple crops other than
rice into the country. ‘Vietnam eats more rice than anywhere else in Asia.
The country’s reliance on rice is too heavy,’ says Svetlomir Ivanov Zakhariev,
the FAO’s representative in Vietnam. The government wants to introduce maize
as a second staple and more animal products to increase protein in the diet,
while planting rice varieties with higher yields. The aim was to plant 150
000 hectares with maize in 1988, but farmers planted only 115 000 hectares.
With a profit incentive, the farmer needs to know that the product will
sell, and the Vietnamese prefer rice. ‘It is a matter of prestige how much
rice is eaten,’ says Zakhariev. ‘We need to establish how realistic a move
to maize is. Will people eat it?’

Currently, the north produces a spring and summer rice crop. The winter
is too cold for a third rice crop, and the FAO’s policy is to encourage
people to plant potatoes and vegetables to provide cash for medicine or
oil. The difficulty is in finding a market for potatoes. Bad roads mean
that it is difficult to sell the potatoes to the Soviet Union for vodka.

Zakhariev sees room for much improvement in agricultural management.
He makes the familiar criticism that people are well educated, but that
they have no access to the scientific literature and they need a broad range
of experience. ‘The FAO’s library is better than Hanoi’s main library,’
he says. In fact the library of ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ is more extensive than that
of the Vietnamese National State Committee for Science and Technology.

At a more practical level, lack of infrastructure hinders the management
of agricultural cooperatives. Graduates from university with no experience
are sent to manage cooperatives. ‘Their situation is horrible,’ says Zakhariev.
‘There may not be drinking water, roads or houses. To deliver orders to
the outlying part of their districts 50 or 60 kilometres away is a three-day
trip, so they stay in their offices and drink tea and give orders which
do not reach the grass roots.’

Despite this, Marion Cadogan from International Cooperation for Development
and Solidarity, an Irish non-governmental organisation, believes there is
a lot of organisation at the commune level. She has found when working in
an area on, say, irrigation projects, that local people have all the plans
ready for an irrigation scheme, and are only waiting for the resources to
put the plan into effect.

Often, the weather upsets Vietnam’s agricultural plans. In 1987 it was
floods. This year, a cold winter has damaged some of the rice seedlings
in the north, and people are replanting. But the weather affects more than
just agriculture. The rapid swings in temperature between day and night
(from about 25 Degree C to 8 Degree C with a relative humidity of 80 per
cent), the cold damp of the northern winters, warm humidity of the summer
and high levels of chloride and sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere cause
corrosion, damage spare parts for equipment and turn buildings black with
mould.

After natural resources and life sciences, finding ways to produce equipment
that survives in the corrosive climate is the country’s third scientific
priority. Yet again, lack of literature, resources and easy contact with
scientists from different backgrounds holds back the work. At the National
Academy of Science, the Institute of Tropical Technology attempts, with
limited resources, to study construction techniques and the behaviour of
electronics in Vietnam’s climate. When I visited, the department was looking
its best to receive a ministerial party. In one room, a few scientists were
studying the innards of old television sets with antiquated equipment. Dong
Van Thu, who was educated in France and is head of the institute, explained
what needs to be done. He briskly showed off the laboratories and displayed
an ongoing experiment outside where metals with various coatings have been
exposed to the atmosphere for six months. The experiment is to assess the
effectiveness of the different coatings, which were all made in Vietnam.
In passing, he said it was sad that he and his scientists did not receive
up-to-date literature from the West about their subject.

At the end of the tour Dong Van’s comment was echoed by Dau Sy Thai,
deputy director of the academy’s Department for International Collaboration.
Dau Sy added, as if he were giving a party speech, that science is international,
and that Vietnamese scientists should have access to the literature and
be able to collaborate with Western scientists. Despite the rhetoric, there
is much in the sentiment.

Slowly, the academy is forming links with countries other than those
of the Eastern bloc. The principal links are with Sweden and France. West
Germany took 14 scientists last year, and this year will select about 20
people from 75 applications. Italy and Japan have also offered bursaries
to Vietnamese scientists. The president of the US’s National Academy of
Sciences has just visited Vietnam, and is considering whether to invite
Vietnamese scientists to study in the US.

Finally, Dau Sy came to what he clearly believed to be the most useful
part of a meeting with a British journalist from ¿ìè¶ÌÊÓƵ. He explained
that there were few scientific links with Britain, and that Britain had
made no proposals to provide bursaries for Vietnamese scientists. He said
the academy would like Britain to fund two scientists to study in Britain
and would like videos and cassettes. The final word, however, was left to
the scientist without access to the scientific literature in English. As
I left the academy, Dong Van hurried after me. ‘You have my address,’ he
said. ‘Please send any literature that you can.’

* * *

Vietnam prepares for investment from Western business

VIETNAM’s Institute of Science Management is busy preparing for what
it hopes will be a large inflow of foreign investment from the West after
the country’s troops have withdrawn from Kampuchea. Last October the institute
established the Consultancy Centre for Technology Transfer and Investment
(Concetti). Currently, the institute is working on a set of rules that will
allow any Vietnamese person to invest in projects and to contact foreign
organisations freely .

While Vietnam prepares for wider contact with the West, Western countries
are stepping up their presence in Vietnam. In March, West German companies,
principally the chemical industry, opened an office in Hanoi to provide
advice and support for their future business ventures. France, the first
country after the Soviet Union to sign an agreement to explore and exploit
Vietnamese oil, has growing business links with the country. Visiting American
businessmen can be found in Hanoi’s hotels, and there is a widely held belief,
and hope from many Vietnamese, that the US will open an embassy in Hanoi
this year.

Vu Cao Dam, head of the Institute of Science Management, believes that
Concetti should play an important role in this rapidly changing business
world. The organisation was formed as a result of a recommendation made
after a joint study between Vu Cao’s institute and the Research Policy Institute
at the University of Lund in Sweden. The study started in 1983. Its aim
was to evaluate the economic and social benefits of technology transfer
to Vietnam and to recommend ways that the regulations governing technology
transfer should be changed. Vu Cao says that the results were intended to
help the Vietnamese government and aid agencies evaluate the worth of projects.

The case studies of 13 industrial projects judged them against 10 criteria,
such as does the project improve the country’s infrastructure. The seven
scientists, five Vietnamese and two Swedish, talked with the suppliers,
for example the Danes who have built a cement factory in northern Vietnam,
and the recipients in Vietnam, working in and managing the projects.

Concetti is funded partly by the state and partly privately. Its job
is to carry out feasibility studies of suggested schemes, to formulate technology
projects that international organisations would pay for and to suggest joint
ventures. The group would also sell consultancy services to foreign investors,
providing legal advice on, say, patent law. Vuo Cao says that Concetti could
help to recruit local experts and prepare contracts. He hopes that within
a few years it will be the main organisation in the North providing consultancy
services.

Now that Concetti is underway, Vu Cao’s institute, which is under the
aegis of the National State Committee for Science and Technology, is concentrating
on four projects. One is to establish standards for research institutes.
Vu Cao says: ‘There is chaos in the research institutes in Vietnam because
many institutes tend to neglect research while trying to produce commodities
for the market.’

Secondly, the institute wants to promote cooperation between the research
community and industry. To do this, Vu Cao says that regulations need drawing
up to govern the contracts between researchers and industrialists.

Finally, Vu Cao’s group is looking at ways to increase the autonomy
of institutes by finding how they can become self-financing. For example,
researchers could hold bonds in their institutes.