Vietnam (12/06)

For the most current version of this Note, see Background Notes A-Z.

PROFILE

OFFICIAL NAME:
Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Geography
Area: 331,114 sq. km. (127,243 sq. mi.); equivalent in size to Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee combined.
Cities (2002): Capital--Hanoi (2.842 million). Other cities--Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon; 5.378 million), Hai Phong (1.711 million), Da Nang (715,000).
Terrain: Varies from mountainous to coastal delta.
Climate: Tropical monsoon.

People
Nationality: Noun and adjective--Vietnamese (sing. and pl.).
Population (2005): 83.1 million.
Annual growth rate (2005): 1.33%.
Ethnic groups: Vietnamese (85%-90%), Chinese (3%), Hmong, Thai, Khmer, Cham, mountain groups.
Religions: Buddhism, Hoa Hao, Cao Dai, Christian (predominantly Roman Catholic, some Protestant), animism, Islam.
Languages: Vietnamese (official), English (increasingly favored as a second language), some French, Chinese, and Khmer, mountain area languages.
Education (2004): Literacy-- 90.3%.
Health (2004): Birth rate—18 births/1000 population. Infant mortality rate-- 17.4 /1000. Life expectancy-- 70.3 yrs.. Death rate--6.56/1,000.

Government
Type: Communist Party-dominated constitutional republic.
Independence: September 2, 1945.
New constitution: April 15, 1992.
Branches: Executive--president (head of state and chair of National Defense and Security Council) and prime minister (heads cabinet of ministries and commissions). Legislative--National Assembly. Judicial--Supreme People's Court; Prosecutorial Supreme People's Procuracy.
Administrative subdivisions: 59 provinces, 5 municipalities (Can Tho, Hai Phong, Da Nang, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh).
Political party: Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) with over 3 million members, formerly (1951-76) Vietnam Worker's Party, itself the successor of the Indochinese Communist Party founded in 1930.
Suffrage: Universal over 18.

Economy
GDP (2005): $53.1 billion.
Real growth rate (2005): 8.4%.
Per capita income (2005): $638.
Inflation rate (2005): 8.4%.
External debt (2005): 32.5% of GDP, $17.2 billion.
Natural resources: Coal, crude oil, zinc, copper, silver, gold, manganese, iron.
Agriculture and forestry (20.9% of GDP, 2005): Principal products--rice, maize, sweet potato, peanut, soya bean, cotton, coffee, cashews. Cultivated land--12.2 million hectares. Land use--21% arable; 28% forest and woodland; 51% other.
Industry and construction (41% of GDP, 2005): Principal types--mining and quarrying, manufacturing, electricity, gas, water supply, cement, phosphate, and steel.
Services (38.1% of GDP, 2005): Principal types--wholesale and retail, repair of vehicles and personal goods, hotel and restaurant, transport storage, telecommunications, tourism.
Trade (2005): Exports--$32.23 billion. Principal exports--garments/textiles, crude oil, footwear, rice (second-largest exporter in world), sea products, coffee, rubber, handicrafts. Major export partners--U.S., EU, Japan, China, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, and Germany. Imports--$36.88 billion. Principal imports--machinery, oil and gas, garment materials, iron and steel, transport-related equipment. Major import partners--China, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, and Thailand. Exports to U.S. (2005)--$6.5 billion. Imports from U.S. (2005) $1.19 billion.

PEOPLE
Originating in what is now southern China and northern Vietnam, the Vietnamese people pushed southward over 2 millennia to occupy the entire eastern seacoast of the Indochinese Peninsula. Ethnic Vietnamese constitute about 90% of Vietnam's population.

Vietnam's approximately 2.3 million ethnic Chinese, concentrated mostly in southern Vietnam, constitute Vietnam's largest minority group. Long important in the Vietnamese economy, Vietnamese of Chinese ancestry have been active in rice trading, milling, real estate, and banking in the south and shop keeping, stevedoring, and mining in the north. Restrictions on economic activity following reunification of the north and south in 1975 and the subsequent but unrelated general deterioration in Vietnamese-Chinese relations sent chills through the Chinese-Vietnamese community. In 1978-79, some 450,000 ethnic Chinese left Vietnam by boat as refugees (many officially encouraged and assisted) or were expelled across the land border with China.

The second-largest ethnic minority grouping, the central highland peoples (formerly termed Montagnards or mountain people), comprise two main ethnolinguistic groups--Malayo-Polynesian and Mon-Khmer. About 30 groups of various cultures and dialects are spread over the highland territory.

The third-largest minority, the Khmer Krom (Cambodians), numbering about 600,000, is concentrated near the Cambodian border and at the mouth of the Mekong River. Most are farmers. Other minority groups include the Cham--remnants of the once-mighty Champa Kingdom, conquered by the Vietnamese in the 15th century--Hmong, and Thai.

Vietnamese is the official language of the country. It is a tonal language with influences from Thai, Khmer, and Chinese. Since the early 20th century, the Vietnamese have used a Romanized script introduced by the French. Previously, Chinese characters and an indigenous phonetic script were both used.

HISTORY
Vietnam's identity has been shaped by long-running conflicts, both internally and with foreign forces. In 111 BC, China's Han dynasty conquered northern Vietnam's Red River Delta and the ancestors of today's Vietnamese. Chinese dynasties ruled Vietnam for the next 1,000 years, inculcating it with Confucian ideas and political culture. In 939 AD, Vietnam achieved independence under a native dynasty. After 1471, when Vietnam conquered the Champa Kingdom in what is now central Vietnam, the Vietnamese moved gradually southward, finally reaching the rich Mekong Delta, encountering there earlier settled Cham and Cambodians. While Vietnam's emperors reigned ineffectually, powerful northern and southern families fought civil wars in the 17th and 18th centuries.

French Rule and the Anti-Colonial Struggle
In 1858, the French began their conquest of Vietnam starting in the south. They annexed all of Vietnam in 1885, but allowed Vietnam's emperors to continue to reign, although not actually to rule. In the early 20th century, French-educated Vietnamese intellectuals organized nationalist and communist-nationalist anti-colonial movements.

Japan's occupation of Vietnam during World War II further stirred nationalism. Vietnamese communists under Ho Chi Minh organized a coalition of anti-colonial groups, the Viet Minh, though many anti-communists refused to join. After Japan stripped the French of much power in Indochina in March 1945, Ho Chi Minh announced the independence of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on September 2, 1945.

North and South Partition
France's post-World War II unwillingness to leave Vietnam led to failed talks and an 8-year guerrilla war between the communist-led Viet Minh on one side and the French and their anti-communist nationalist allies on the other. Following a humiliating defeat at Dien Bien Phu in May 1954, France and other parties, including Britain, China, the Soviet Union, and the United States, convened in Geneva, Switzerland for peace talks. On July 29, 1954, an Agreement on the Cessation of Hostilities in Vietnam was signed between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. The United States observed, but did not sign, the agreement. French colonial rule in Vietnam ended.

The 1954 Geneva agreement provided for a cease-fire between communist and anti-communist nationalist forces, the temporary division of Vietnam at approximately the 17th parallel, provisional northern (communist) and southern (noncommunist) zone governments, and the evacuation of anti-communist Vietnamese from northern to southern Vietnam. The agreement also called for an election to be held by July 1956 to bring the two provisional zones under a unified government. However, the South Vietnamese Government refused to accept this provision. On October 26, 1955, South Vietnam declared itself the Republic of Vietnam.

After 1954, North Vietnamese communist leaders consolidated their power and instituted a harsh agrarian reform and socialization program. In the late 1950s, they reactivated the network of communist guerrillas that had remained behind in the south. These forces--commonly known as the Viet Cong--aided covertly by the north, started an armed campaign against officials and villagers who refused to support the communist reunification cause.

American Assistance to the South
In December 1961, at the request of South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, President Kennedy sent U.S. military advisers to South Vietnam to help the government there deal with the Viet Cong campaign. In the wake of escalating political turmoil in the south after a 1963 generals' coup against President Diem, the United States increased its military support for South Vietnam. In March 1965, President Johnson sent the first U.S. combat forces to Vietnam. The American military role peaked in 1969 with an in-country force of 534,000. However, the Viet Cong's surprise Tet Offensive in January 1968 deeply hurt both the Viet Cong infrastructure and American and South Vietnamese morale. In January 1969, the United States, governments of South and North Vietnam, and the Viet Cong met for the first plenary session of peace talks in Paris, France. These talks, which began with much hope, moved slowly. They finally concluded with the signing of a peace agreement, the Paris Accords, on January 27, 1973. As a result, the south was divided into a patchwork of zones controlled by the South Vietnamese Government and the Viet Cong. The United States withdrew its forces, although U.S. military advisers remained.

Reunification
In early 1975, North Vietnamese regular military forces began a major offensive in the south, inflicting great damage to the south's forces. The communists took Saigon on April 30, 1975, and announced their intention of reunifying the country. The Democratic Republic of Vietnam (north) absorbed the former Republic of Vietnam (south) to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam on July 2, 1976.

After reunification, the government confiscated privately owned land and forced citizens into collectivized agricultural practices. Hundreds of thousands of former South Vietnamese Government and military officials, as well as intellectuals previously opposed to the communist cause, were sent to re-education camps to study socialist doctrine.

While Vietnamese leaders thought that reunification of the country and its socialist transformation would be condoned by the international community, this did not happen. Besides international concern over Vietnam's internal practices, the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1978 and its growing tight alliance with the Soviet Union appeared to confirm suspicions that Vietnam wanted to establish hegemony in Indochina.

Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia also heightened tensions that already existed between Vietnam and China. Beijing, which had long backed the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, retaliated in early 1979 by initiating a border war with Vietnam.

Vietnam's tensions with its neighbors and its stagnant economy contributed to a massive exodus from Vietnam. Fearing persecution, many Chinese in particular fled Vietnam by boat to nearby countries. Later, hundreds of thousands of other Vietnamese nationals fled as well, seeking temporary refuge in camps throughout Southeast Asia.

The continuing grave condition of the economy and the alienation from the international community became focal points of party debate. In 1986, at the Sixth Party Congress, there was an important easing of communist agrarian and commercial policies.

GOVERNMENT AND POLITICAL CONDITIONS
A new state constitution was approved in April 1992, reaffirming the central role of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in politics and society, and outlining government reorganization and increased economic freedom. Though Vietnam remains a one-party state, adherence to ideological orthodoxy has become less important than economic development as a national priority.

The most important powers within the Vietnamese Government--in addition to the Communist Party--are the executive agencies created by the 1992 constitution: the offices of the president and the prime minister. The Vietnamese President, presently Nguyen Minh Triet, functions as head of state but also serves as the nominal commander of the armed forces and chairman of the Council on National Defense and Security. The Prime Minister of Vietnam, presently Nguyen Tan Dung, heads a cabinet currently composed of three deputy prime ministers and the heads of 26 ministries and commissions, all confirmed by the National Assembly.

Notwithstanding the 1992 constitution's reaffirmation of the central role of the Communist Party, the National Assembly, according to the constitution, is the highest representative body of the people and the only organization with legislative powers. It has a broad mandate to oversee all government functions. Once seen as little more than a rubber stamp, the National Assembly has become more vocal and assertive in exercising its authority over lawmaking, particularly in recent years. However, the National Assembly is still subject to party direction. More than 80% of the deputies in the National Assembly are party members. The assembly meets twice yearly for 7-10 weeks each time; elections for members are held every 5 years, although its Standing Committee meets monthly and there are now over 100 "full-time" deputies who function on various committees. There is a separate judicial branch, but it is still relatively weak. Overall, there are few lawyers and trial procedures are rudimentary.

The present 14-member Politburo, elected in April 2006 and headed by Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, determines government policy, and its Secretariat oversees day-to-day policy implementation. In addition, the Party's Central Military Commission, which is composed of select Politburo members and additional military leaders, determines military policy.

A Party Congress, which most recently was comprised of 1,176 delegates at the Tenth Party Congress in April 2006, meets every 5 years to set the direction of the party and the government. The 160-member Central Committee (with an additional 21 alternate members), was elected by the Party Congress and it usually meets at least twice a year.

Principal Government Officials
President--Nguyen Minh Triet
Prime Minister--Nguyen Tan Dung
National Assembly Chairman--Nguyen Phu Trong
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs--Pham Gia Khiem
Ambassador to the United States--Nguyen Tam Chien
Ambassador to the United Nations--Le Luong Minh

Politburo
(Tenth Party Congress Politburo, named April 25, 2006; listed in the order it was announced, including the individuals’ current positions.)

General Secretary of CPV Central Committee, 10th Party Congress--Nong Duc Manh
Minister of Public Security--Le Hong Anh
Prime Minister--Nguyen Tan Dzung
State President--Nguyen Minh Triet
Standing Secretariat Member--Truong Tan Sang
National Assembly Chairman--Nguyen Phu Trong
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs--Pham Gia Khiem
Minister of Defense, General Chief of Staff--Phung Quang Thanh
Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman, Party Internal Affairs Commission--Truong Vinh Trong
Secretary of HCMC Party's Committee--Le Thanh Hai
Standing Deputy Prime Minister--Nguyen Sinh Hung
Secretary of Hanoi Party's Committee--Pham Quang Nghi
Chairman, Party Organization and Personnel Commission--Ho Duc Viet
Chairman, Party Control Commission--Nguyen Van Chi

Vietnam maintains an embassy in the U.S. at 1233-20th Street, NW, #400, Washington DC 20036 (tel. 202-861-0737; fax 202-861-0917); Internet home page: www.vietnamembassy-usa.org/. There is also a consulate general located in San Francisco at 1700 California Street, Suite 430, San Francisco, CA 94109 (tel. 415-922-1707; fax 415-922-1848; Internet homepage: www.vietnamconsulate-sf.org.

ECONOMY
Economic stagnation marked the period after reunification from 1975 to 1985. In 1986, the Sixth Party Congress approved a broad economic reform package called "Doi Moi" (renovation) that introduced market reforms and dramatically improved Vietnam's business climate. Vietnam became one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, averaging around 8% annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth from 1990 to 1997 and 6.5% from 1998-2003. In 2004-2005, GDP grew over 8% annually. Vietnam's inflation rate, as measured by the consumer price index, which stood at an annual rate of over 300% in 1987, was below 4% from 1997 (except in 1998 when it rose to 9.2%) until 2003. However, in 2004 the consumer price index increased to 9.5%, dropping slightly in 2005 to 8.4%. Average annual foreign investment commitment has risen sharply as a result of the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement and Vietnam's drive toward membership in the World Trade Organization (WTO). In 2006, investment commitment is expected to rise to $9 billion, up from $2.2 and $4.0 billion in 2004 and 2005, respectively. The average Vietnamese savings rate is about 30 percent. From 1990 to 2005, agricultural production nearly doubled, transforming Vietnam from a net food importer to the world's second-largest exporter of rice.

Foreign trade and foreign direct investment have improved significantly. The shift away from a centrally planned economy to a more market-oriented economic model improved the quality of life for many Vietnamese. Per capita income, $220 in 1994, rose to $638 in 2005 with a related reduction in the share of the population living in acute poverty. However, regional differences in average income are wide: $638 for the whole country on average but about $1,800 in Ho Chi Minh City and much lower than average in poorer provinces of the central and northern highlands.

The East Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s slowed the pace of economic growth that marked the earlier part of the decade. While a return to pre-crisis levels of growth and development has been slow, the pace has picked up in recent years, primarily as the result of ongoing economic and trade liberalization. Vietnam's economic stance following the East Asian financial crisis first emphasized macroeconomic stability, then shifted its focus toward growth. While the country has moved toward a more market-oriented economy, the Vietnamese Government still holds a tight rein over major sectors of the economy through large state-owned enterprises and the banking system. The launch of the State Capital Investment Corporation at the end of 2005 is intended to make state-owned enterprises operate more competitively. The government has plans to reform key sectors and privatize state-owned enterprises, but implementation has been gradual. Greater emphasis on private sector development is critical for job creation. Urban unemployment has been rising in recent years, and rural unemployment, estimated to be between 25% and 35% during non-harvest periods, is already at critical levels.

The December 10, 2001, entry-into-force of the Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) between the U.S. and Vietnam was a significant milestone for Vietnam's economy and for normalization of U.S.-Vietnam relations. Implementation of this agreement, which includes provisions on trade in goods, trade in services, enforcement of intellectual property rights, protection for investments, and transparency, fundamentally changed Vietnam’s trade regime and helped liberalize its economy. By virtue of the BTA, normal trade relations (NTR) status was accorded to Vietnam on a conditional basis. Bilateral trade between the two countries expanded dramatically, rising more than five-fold from 2001 to $7.69 billion in 2005.

By requiring a range of reforms to Vietnam's trade and investment regime, the BTA also helped Vietnam prepare for the next major step in its integration into the world economy: membership in the WTO. Following the conclusion of bilateral negotiations with interested WTO members and completion of multilateral negotiations in 2006, the WTO General Council approved the terms for Vietnam's membership on November 7, 2006. Vietnam formally acceded to the WTO as its 150^th member on January 11, 2007. Vietnam was granted unconditional normal trade relations (NTR) status by the United States through a Presidential Proclamation signed by President Bush on December 29, 2006. On January 11, 2007 the United States removed the application of quotas on textile and apparel imports from Vietnam consistent with the terms of our WTO bilateral market access agreement and treatment provided other WTO members. To meet the obligations of WTO membership, Vietnam revised nearly all of its trade and investment laws and guiding regulations. As a result, foreign investors and those seeking to sell goods and services to the increasingly affluent Vietnamese population will benefit from the improved legislative framework and lower trade barriers. Local firms that have heretofore enjoyed a range of protections, meanwhile, will experience increased competition. As 2006 drew to a close, the Government of Vietnam reasserted its goal of becoming a middle-income country by 2010. That would entail raising the average per capita income to at least $1,000 from the 2005 average of $638. Economic analysts, including those at the World Bank, believe that this goal is attainable.

Agriculture and Industry
Land reform, de-collectivization, and the opening of the agricultural sector to market forces converted Vietnam from a country facing chronic food shortages in the early 1980s to the second-largest rice exporter in the world. Besides rice, key exports are coffee, tea, rubber, and fisheries products. Agriculture's share of economic output has declined, falling as a share of GDP from 42% in 1989 to 20.9% in 2005, as production in other sectors of the economy has risen.

Paralleling its efforts to increase agricultural output, Vietnam’s industrial production has grown. Industry contributed 41% of GDP in 2005, up from 27.3% in 1985. State-owned enterprises are marked by low productivity and inefficiency, the result of a command-style economic system applied in an underdeveloped country. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is a dynamic feature of Vietnam's industrializing economy. As of the end of 2005, cumulative implemented foreign direct investment totaled over $34 billion, helping to transform the industrial landscape of Vietnam.

Vietnam has successfully increased exports of manufactured goods, especially labor-intensive manufactures, such as textiles and apparel and footwear. Subsidies have been cut to some inefficient state enterprises. The Government is also in the process of "equitizing" (e.g., transforming state enterprises into share holding companies and distributing a portion of the shares to management, workers and private foreign and domestic investors) a significant number of state enterprises. However, to date the government continues to maintain control of the largest and most important companies. Despite reforms, the state share of GDP has remained relatively constant since 2000, at 38-39%.

Trade and Balance of Payments
From the late 1970s until the 1990s, Vietnam was heavily dependent on the Soviet Union and its allies for trade and economic assistance. To compensate for drastic cuts in Soviet-bloc support after 1989, Vietnam liberalized trade, devalued its exchange rate to increase exports, and embarked on a policy of regional and international economic re-integration. Vietnam has demonstrated its commitment to trade liberalization in recent years, and integration with the world economy has become one of the cornerstones of its reform program. Vietnam has locked in its intention to create a more competitive and open economy by committing to several comprehensive international trade agreements, including the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA). Vietnam's accession to the World Trade Organization will further integrate Vietnam into the global economy.

As a result of these reforms, exports expanded significantly, growing by as much as 20%-30% in some years. In 2005, exports accounted for 63% of GDP. Imports have also grown rapidly, and Vietnam has a significant trade deficit (forecast to be $4.8 billion in 2006). Vietnam’s total external debt, accounting for 32.5% of GDP in 2005, was estimated at around $17.2 billion.

FOREIGN RELATIONS
During the second Indochina war (1954-75), North Vietnam balanced relations with its two major allies, the Soviet Union and China. By 1975, tension began to grow as Beijing increasingly viewed Vietnam as a potential Soviet instrument to encircle China. Meanwhile, Beijing's increasing support for Cambodia's Khmer Rouge sparked Vietnamese suspicions of China's motives.

Vietnamese-Chinese relations deteriorated significantly after Hanoi instituted a ban in March 1978 on private trade, mostly affecting Sino-Vietnamese. Following Vietnam's December 1978 invasion of Cambodia, China launched a retaliatory incursion over Vietnam's northern border. Faced with severance of Chinese aid and strained international relations, Vietnam established even closer ties with the Soviet Union and its allies in the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon). Through the 1980s, Vietnam received nearly $3 billion a year in economic and military aid from the Soviet Union and conducted most of its trade with that country and with other Council for Mutual Economic Assistance countries. However, Soviet and East bloc economic aid ceased after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Vietnam did not begin to emerge from international isolation until it withdrew its troops from Cambodia in 1989. Within months of the 1991 Paris Agreements, Vietnam established diplomatic and economic relations with ASEAN as well as with most of the countries of Western Europe and Northeast Asia. China reestablished full diplomatic ties with Vietnam in 1991, and the two countries concluded a land border demarcation agreement in 1999.

In the past decade, Vietnam has recognized the increasing importance of growing global economic interdependence and has made concerted efforts to adjust its foreign relations to reflect the evolving international economic and political situation in Southeast Asia. The country has begun to integrate itself into the regional and global economy by joining international organizations. Vietnam has stepped up its efforts to attract foreign capital from the West and regularize relations with the world financial system. In the 1990s, following the lifting of the American veto on multilateral loans to the country, Vietnam became a member of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank. The country has expanded trade with its East Asian neighbors as well as with countries in Western Europe and North America. Of particular significance was Vietnam's acceptance into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in July 1995. Vietnam joined the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC) in November 1998 and hosted the ASEAN summit in 2001 and APEC in 2006.

While Vietnam has remained relatively conflict-free since its Cambodia days, tensions have arisen in the past between Vietnam and its neighbors (especially China). Vietnam and China each assert claims to the Spratly Islands (as does Taiwan), an archipelago in a potentially oil-rich area of the South China Sea. Over the years, conflicting claims have produced small-scale armed altercations in the area; in 1988 more than 70 people were killed during a confrontation between China and Vietnam. China's assertion of control over the Spratly Islands and the entire South China Sea has elicited concern from Vietnam and its Southeast Asia neighbors. The territorial border between the two countries is being definitively mapped pursuant to a Land Border Agreement signed in December 1999, and an Agreement on Borders in the Gulf of Tonkin signed in December 2000. Vietnam and Russia declared a strategic partnership in March 2001 during the first visit ever to Hanoi of a Russian head of state, largely as an attempt to counterbalance the People's Republic of China's (P.R.C.) growing profile in Southeast Asia.

U.S.-VIETNAM RELATIONS
After a 20-year hiatus of severed ties, President Clinton announced the formal normalization of diplomatic relations with Vietnam on July 11, 1995. Subsequent to President Clinton's normalization announcement, in August 1995, both nations upgraded their Liaison Offices opened during January 1995 to embassy status. As diplomatic ties between the nations grew, the United States opened a consulate general in Ho Chi Minh City, and Vietnam opened a consulate in San Francisco.

U.S. relations with Vietnam have become deeper and more diverse in the years since political normalization. The two countries have broadened their political exchanges through regular dialogues on human rights and regional security. They signed a Bilateral Trade Agreement in July 2000, which went into force in December 2001. In 2003, the two countries signed a Counternarcotics Letter of Agreement, a Civil Aviation Agreement, and a textile agreement.

As of November 2, 2006, the U.S. Government listed 1,796 Americans unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, including 1,373 in Vietnam. Since 1973, 850 Americans have been accounted for, including 608 in Vietnam. Additionally, the Department of Defense has confirmed that of the 196 individuals who were "last known alive" (LKA), the U.S. Government has determined the fate of all but 31. The United States considers achieving the fullest possible accounting of Americans missing and unaccounted for in Indochina to be one of its highest priorities with Vietnam.

Since entry into force of the U.S.-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement on December 10, 2001, increased trade between the U.S. and Vietnam, combined with large-scale U.S. investment in Vietnam, evidence the maturing U.S.-Vietnam economic relationship. In 2005, Vietnam exported $6.5 billion of goods to the U.S. and imported $1.19 billion of U.S. goods. Similarly, U.S. companies continue to invest directly in the Vietnamese economy. During 2006, the U.S. private sector committed $444 million to Vietnam in foreign direct investment. This number is expected to rise dramatically following Vietnam's accession into the WTO.

Another sign of the expanding bilateral relationship is the signing of a Bilateral Air Transport Agreement in December 2003. Several U.S. carriers already have third-party code sharing agreements with Vietnam Airlines. Direct flights between Ho Chi Minh City and San Francisco began in December 2004. Vietnam and the United States have also pledged to sign a bilateral Maritime Agreement in early 2007 which will open the maritime transport and services industry of Vietnam to U.S. firms.

Principal U.S. Embassy Official
Ambassador--Michael W. Marine

The U.S. Embassy in Vietnam is located at 7 Lang Ha, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi, Socialist Republic of Vietnam (tel. 84-4-772-1500; fax 84-4-772-1510).

Principal U.S. Consulate General Official
Consul General--Seth Winnick

The U.S. Consulate General in Ho Chi Minh City is located at 4 Le Duan, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Socialist Republic of Vietnam (tel. 84-8-822-9433; fax 84-8-822-9434).