The Position And Roles Of Vietnam In ASEAN Economic Cooperation

ASEAN, the association of Southeast Asian nations, is an organization with great difference in ideological, political and economic system of its member states. In the past, the organization mainly focused on political and security cooperation, but soon economic cooperation has become the main focus of the organization particularly in an environment where regional economic cooperation and integration has been becoming the main feature of contemporary developing world economy. Under the tidal waves of economic globalization and regional economic cooperation, ASEAN has also made many great achievements.Vietnam, a member state of ASEAN, remained engage in warfare for more than a hundred years with colonialist powers. Resultantly, Vietnam never got an opportunity to build economic infrastructure or to enhance its scarce human resource. On the other hand, national leaders adopted the extreme left"socialist transformation"and false strategic policies. That further created problems for Vietnamese economy. In the late 1980's under the new leadership, Vietnam brought a number of changes in its foreign policy. This helped Vietnam to make its diplomatic relation stronger with the rest of the world, particularly with its neighboring countries. Similarly, the economic reforms in the late 1980's also realized the fruit of rapid economic development almost in all the three sectors of the economy. Per capita GDP increased continuously and crossed $1000 per person in the year 2008. It is one of the fastest growing economies in the Southeast Asian region. Now, Vietnam is considered a country with competitive economic system and economic infrastructure with a huge human resource. Country's investment friendly environment attracted foreign investors and foreign investment. This helped reduce the chronic unemployment rate and improved the living standard of the people.Vietnam officially became a member of ASEAN in 1995. In the region, Vietnam has many comparative advantages such as strategic location, abundance in natural and human resources and stable political environment. Moreover, Vietnam has special relations with the new and old member of ASEAN and playing the role of a bridge among them. Thus joining ASEAN has become one of the most important gateways for Vietnam to integrate into the world economy. So this paper attempts to highlight the position of Vietnam in ASEAN by taking in to consideration its rapid development, economic reform, and its comparative advantages in the region. Realizing its own interest, growing trend of the Vietnam economy will help Vietnam to play an important role in ASEAN economic cooperation in the long run.