VietNamNet Bridge - The Vietnamese people at times are proud when they talk about the country’s number of luxury cars – an indicator of the dissipation of the rich in Vietnam and they do not forget to comment further, "Who says Vietnamese people are poor?”

Vietnam has been rated one of the countries with great success in the fight against poverty. More than 60% of the population lived in poverty in the 1990s, but today that number has dropped to about 9% (according to national standards). Per capita income calculated in accordance with the PPP (purchasing power) has increased from $790 in 1990 to $5,125 in 2014. From a war-weary country, Vietnamese income today is equivalent to about 29% of the world average by (source: World Bank).

Most people are interested in reading "breaking" news about how many luxury cars owned by Cuong Dola (a young businessman who is very famous for having many million-USD cars), how much pop star Ho Ngoc Ha (Cuong Dola’s wife) earned in 2014 or about old businessman Le An just marrying a new wife.

Not many readers are interested in how many preschool teachers are unemployed, or how many farmers in the southern province of Tra Vinh are now insolvent because of shrimp crop failure.

If we notice the latest information on income distribution of Vietnamese people, we would know that 43% of the country's income runs to the pocket of the wealthy people, who account for 20% of the population (source: World Bank).

According to the WB statistics, the poorest group, accounting for 10% of the population, only owns 2.9% of the joint income.

Optimism can help us have momentum to go forward. Yet it cannot change the fact that, with more than 90 million people, the income of the country in 2014 reached about $171.4 billion only (source: World Bank).

This means that, more than 9 million poor people in the country earned only about $5 billion in revenue this year - equivalent to $550/person/year, compared with the country’s average of $1,900.

This figure is synonymous with the fact that after nearly three decades of innovation and being highly appreciated for achievement of poverty reduction, in 2014 Vietnam still has more than 9 million people living with a low income.

Although the inequality index, GINI of Vietnam, this year remains in the allowable level (less than 40 points), the root causes of poverty have been revealed. These are inequality and imbalance of power.

In today's information age, "poverty is not necessarily just hunger, lack of water, or lack of living conditions and other activities but poverty is also caused by social barriers and other agents preventing the individual or community from having access to resources, information and services. So poverty is not just an individual but it includes factors that inhibit the individual from having access to resources or not finding solutions for themselves to escape from the existing condition.” This is called multidimensional poverty (reference: People's Action in Practice, ActionAid).

What direction?

If based on this concept, the current poverty rate is not only 9% as in the report. There is a large group of the population, most of whom are farmers with little arable land, limited skills, and lack of other employment opportunities.

They are diligent in doing farmwork on a small-scale, in terms of land and investment. The result is that they are not classified as "poor" because they do not meet the criteria for poverty of the government, but in essence they really are "poor" under the concept of multidimensional poverty, and their poverty is "sustainable" because in the long term there is no solution to change their lives.

And what about the rich?

Looking at the economic structure of Vietnam in recent years, we can see that most of the exports like apparel, footwear, electronics and machinery have elements of foreign investment. The Vietnamese income sources mainly come from agriculture (very low value), wood, minerals and oil. Thus the income of the wealthy Vietnamese still mainly comes from two sources: the export of natural resources and foreign debt.

Resources will be quickly depleted and the debt must be paid (it is forecast that Vietnam needs 10% of GDP to pay foreign debts in 2014) and this is the "the unsustainable wealth" of Vietnam's rich people.

So what is the direction for Vietnam to escape from sustainable poverty and unsustainable wealth?

A State of Law, where policies are applied consistently to all classes of society to create a stable, transparent and based-on-law society; restricting the abuse of power of responsible subjects, the important causes of corruption, thereby eliminating the risk of inequality and imbalance of power between individuals, groups and communities. These can all can be seen as a priority.

Sustainable poverty and unsustainable wealth can be solved when we add Vietnamese intellectual content to "Made in Vietnam" products.

Success only comes when we live in a society with many good values along the right direction, which respects the dignity of people with motivation and determination, and all act for a mighty Vietnam.

Tran Van Tuan