So much for the next Asian success story.
BY GEOFFREY CAIN |JULY 11, 2012
Foreign Policy
HO CHI MINH CITY – In what was once one of Asia’s most exciting emerging markets, Nguyen Van Nguyen sees only gloom ahead. Since 2008, his business in southern Vietnam’s economic capital has suffered through two volatile bouts of inflation, peaking in August 2011 at 23 percent — at the time, Asia’s highest inflation rate. Now he’s only accepting small overseas orders for Binh Minh, his once-thriving bamboo-screen factory in Ho Chi Minh City, to hedge against price fluctuations. He says customers in Australia, Europe, and the United States have decreased their orders following weakening global demand. Production costs across the industry have risen approximately 30 percent while customers are only willing to pay about 10 percent more, says Dang Quoc Hung, vice president of Association for Handicraft and Wood Industry in Ho Chi Minh City. Nguyen’s hiring fewer workers for the summer high season and cutting their pay to about $120 a month, down from $200. “We can only work at a slow speed, and things are hard now,” he lamented in late June.
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