Governance and Export Performance in Vietnam

Abstract

Abstract:Since Đổi Mới in 1986, Vietnam has implemented a comprehensive economic renovation programme, including governance reform. As a result, the country has experienced impressive growth, mainly fuelled by rapid export expansion. This paper aims to examine the correlation between Vietnam’s export efficiency and bilateral-specific governance performance indicator during the 1996–2014 period. The results show that Vietnam’s export efficiency is positively correlated with the bilateral governance indicator and regional trade agreements, but negatively correlated with tariffs in the importing countries. The performance of Vietnam’s export efficiency also displays an overall increasing trend, with some fluctuation before 2005 and gradual rise afterwards. The country achieved high efficiency in terms of exports to all major trading partners—with the exception of China. At the disaggregated level, export efficiency in electronic equipment is very low, suggesting that there remains large unrealized export potential in this product category. Overall, these results indicate that there is plenty of room for Vietnam’s exports to grow in the future if the country can improve its efficiency in particular export products and/or markets.