Entrepreneurialism and Tourism in Contemporary Vietnam by Gillen Jamie;

Author:Gillen, Jamie;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2012-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

This case shows that the local Ho Chi Minh City government—now decentralized from the national government, faced with burgeoning non-state competition, and encouraged to engage in its own business activities without the promise of perpetual solvency from Hanoi—had turned to aggression in its dealings with competitors. This is a neglected form of urban state entrepreneurialism yet it is a trenchant facet of local officials’ attempts to contain market losses as a result of the liberalization of the urban economy. Todd’s frustrated diatribe against the state illustrates that the state’s preferred mode of coordination with the non-state in the early days of đổi mới was executed by force and theft. This story reflects the frustration often felt by Ho Chi Minh City non-state small business operators at the time who came to believe that the strong arming tactics of the local state demonstrate city officials’ “greed and paranoia” at the changing dynamics of non-state competition in post–đổi mới Vietnam (Leshkowich 2008: 17). Adding insult to injury, Todd noted that at the time he had to pay “fees” to the office of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) in order to continue operations. Payoffs like this do not hold a place in most narratives of entrepreneurial cities, where the actions of both the public and private sectors are to coordinate in order to profit from investment capital, not to destroy private businesses.

As mentioned previously, the market reforms arrived in conjunction with the decision in 1990 to assign provincial status to the major cities of Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, and Haiphong (and later Danang and Can Tho), giving these cities’ governments greater autonomy to act entrepreneurially than ever before. This meant that officials in these cities have the same policy, decision-making, and voting authority as leaders in the other provinces of Vietnam. In rewriting the provincial map of Vietnam, national authorities in Hanoi designated cities as the primary drivers for Vietnamese development. When I asked Todd how he knew the police and auditors were from the local police, rather than the district or ward police, he told me that the city police wore different uniforms than the district police. His informal discussions with other newly minted entrepreneurs who were also visited by officials confirmed that his circumstance with the local authorities was not an isolated incident. Moreover, Todd noted that he had met a few of the auditors at meetings set up by the local officials with new non-state entrepreneurs. These interactions posit that local Ho Chi Minh City officials—perhaps wary of a more level playing field and worried about the viability of their own tourism businesses in light of their new autonomy from the central state—worked in coordination with local police in bullying new non-state businesses.

Despite the predatory practices of the state at the outset of the policy reforms it seems from interviews with Todd (as well as from Leshkowich’s analysis [2008]) that both the state and non-state exhibit characteristics of urban entrepreneurialism. Many non-state entrepreneurs were catalyzed by the market reforms to establish new businesses throughout the city.

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