Once again, Vietnamese most hopeful about future
One of the world's most war-torn, poverty-ravaged countries is also the most optimistic about its future.
A series of international surveys, the most recent released last month, has found the Vietnamese have a brighter view of their country's economic and quality-of-life prospects than any other.
Three in four Vietnamese say this year will be better than last year, according to an end-of-year Gallup International survey.
It is the third straight year Vietnam has topped the company's annual optimism poll.
'Vietnamese people have lived very hard lives but now our lives have improved a lot,' said Vu Song Tuan, 29, an environmental specialist with a foreign company in Hanoi.
'Life for my family was not good at all 10 years ago, but now we have more things and we can go where we want to go.'
Vietnam was one of the world's poorest and most repressive countries for more than a decade after the Vietnam war ended in 1975.
But economic development has steadily picked up pace since 1986 when the communist government in Hanoi adopted its doi moi reform programme, centred on switching to a market economy and a gradual increase in individual freedoms.
Gross domestic product growth reached 8.5 per cent last year, second only to China internationally.
Chris Morley of ACNielsen Vietnam, whose surveys have produced similar results, said the Chinese might not be as optimistic despite the higher growth rate because much greater urban modernisation has already taken place there.
'Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi residents are seeing their cities very rapidly developing from semi-urban areas to becoming a rival of Shanghai in terms of modernity, perhaps within the next 10 years,' Mr Morley said.
