Viet Nam

Regulation is one of the key tools governments can use to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and move towards recovery. While the pandemic underscores the need for well-designed, evidence-based regulatory policies, the extraordinary pressures it imposed often forced governments to shorten procedures and launch new forms of co-ordination to urgently pass regulatory measures. This can make regulatory policy making more challenging, but also provides opportunities to innovate. This policy brief analyses how Southeast Asian (SEA) countries approached these challenges and opportunities, and shares lessons learned and practices among the SEA and OECD communities.

Viet Nam’s sustained economic development is driving increasing demand for electricity with generation capacity predicted to nearly double over the next decade. With the majority of economic hydropower resources utilised, delays in coal power pipelines, and increasing energy insecurity, Viet Nam has pivoted its electricity sector development plans to further prioritize the deployment of wind and solar generation. A clean energy transition such as this can deliver multiple social and economic benefits related to cost reductions, improved energy security, and public health. This working paper was prepared to support least-cost energy sector planning in Viet Nam particularly for the upcoming Viet Nam Energy Outlook 2021 (VEO21) being prepared in partnership between Viet Nam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) and the Danish Energy Agency (DEA). This working paper discusses the use of discounting in energy models and the potential impact discount rate selection may have on a model’s cost-optimised technology selections. The paper also analyses the clean energy finance environment in Viet Nam to identify opportunities for policy levers to reduce the prevailing cost of capital and how these cost implications can be tested in the VEO21 modelling exercise. The main outputs of this working paper are two sets of model inputs, an estimate for an appropriate social discount rate and secondly a set of high and low financial hurdle rates for renewable energy technologies for use in sensitivity or scenario analysis.

This review analyses regulatory barriers to competition in the logistics sector in ASEAN, with the goal of helping authorities make regulation more pro-competitive while fostering long-lasting growth. This report is based on a competition assessment of laws and regulations conducted by the OECD in the framework of the project 'Fostering Competition in Asean'. Besides developing recommendations to promote the competitive and efficient functioning of markets under review, this report also includes estimates of how the implementation of certain recommendations could impact the economy. An OECD Competitive Neutrality Review of Small-package Delivery Services in ASEAN was launched together with this study.

This review analyses regulatory barriers to competition in the logistics sector in Viet Nam, with the goal of helping the government make regulation more pro-competitive while fostering long-lasting growth. This report is based on a competition assessment of laws and regulations conducted by the OECD in the framework of the project 'Fostering Competition in Asean'. Besides developing recommendations to promote the competitive and efficient functioning of markets under review, this report also includes estimates of how the implementation of certain recommendations could impact the economy. An OECD Competitive Neutrality Review of Small-package Delivery Services in Viet Nam was launched together with this study.

The world is increasingly facing a technologically changing employment landscape and such changes are directly affecting the future demand for skills. For regional economies built on labour migration, the impending changes will affect migrants and their families, their countries of origin and the recruitment systems they are attached to – and ultimately disrupt the development benefits of migration. This paper investigates how the future of the employment landscape will affect migration within the Abu Dhabi Dialogue, a regional consultative process for migration in Asia. It investigates the impending changes in the demand for skills in countries of destination, how such changes will affect migration processes and whether countries of origin are ready for the changes. It provides recommendations on how regional consultative processes can foster dialogue between key actors from both countries of origin and destination to better navigate future changes and ensure a smooth transition.

Many Emerging Asian countries have been refining macroprudential policies, particularly since the Global Financial Crisis. For instance, they have developed policies targeting housing markets and broadly transposed the Basel III requirements into their national legislation. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers now need to identify emerging vulnerabilities and their associated financial stability risks and respond with the appropriate macroprudential tools. This publication provides a detailed overview of the current macroprudential policy situation in Emerging Asian countries and explores how the macroprudential policy toolkit has evolved. The report discusses some of the most pressing challenges to financial stability, including the interaction of macroprudential policy with other policies. It also devotes special attention to macroprudential policies for emerging priorities, such as achieving green goals and updating regulatory frameworks to reflect ongoing Fintech developments. Climate change will indeed create new challenges in financial markets, while Fintech developments bring about many economic opportunities and deepen financial systems, but present a variety of novel risks requiring rapid policy responses.

Informal employment, defined through the lack of employment-based social protection, constitutes the bulk of employment in developing countries, and entails a level of vulnerability to poverty and other risks that are borne by all who are dependent on informal work income. Results from the Key Indicators of Informality based on Individuals and their Households database (KIIbIH) show that a disproportionately large number of middle‑class informal economy workers receive remittances. Such results confirm that risk management strategies, such as migration, play a part in minimising the potential risks of informal work for middle‑class informal households who may not be eligible to social assistance. They further suggest that middle‑class informal workers may have a solvent demand for social insurance so that, if informality-robust social insurance schemes were made available to them, remittances could potentially be channelled to finance the extension of social insurance to the informal economy.