| Summary: | State-owned enterprise (SOE) reform is a key element in the Vietnamese Government's programme of doi moi, under which marketization and integration into the global economy are occuring. However, party policy prescribes a continuing strategic economic role for SOEs. Equitization is confined mainly to smaller or loss-making enterprise, while the state sector is undergoing various forms of commercialization. Many observers, particularly advocates of privatization, note the slow implementation and apparent incoherence of restructuring policies since 1987, and point to reform failure and a weak state. On the contrary, the state is successfully managing a complex domestic political process in which state business interests defend their commercial privileges against unwelcome restructuring proposals. At the same time, central state actors are deflecting demands from international donors for more rapid reform, while using aid and technical assistance to strengthen state control. In the process, u considerable degree of commercial restructuring seems to be taking place. Apparent gaps in hierarchical control and policy incoherence mask a situation in which a variety of state and party actors with conflicting interests find mutual accommodation within u broad framework of party-sanctioned policy settings
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