VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnamese, the citizens of a low-average income country as listed by the World Bank, are known in the world as spendthrifts, a National Assembly deputy has said.

“I’ve been to many countries in the world and I believe Vietnamese are those who spend money most arbitrarily,” said Dr. Tran Du Lich of HCM City. 

Lich spoke at a meeting discussing the draft of the amended State Budget Law held in mid-May.

Lich drew the audience’s attention to a provision in the draft law which says authorized agencies have the right to make decisions to use the money from the state budget.

He said “authorized agencies” is an unclear expression which may imply a wide range of state agencies. In principle, state budget spending can only be determined by the National Assembly.

“The arbitrary use of words in legal documents will prompt state agencies to use money arbitrarily,” he noted.

Lich said he once had a working session with a delegation of foreign parliamentarians and had to eat lunch after the working session because the parliamentarians could not invite him to eat as the state budget had not been approved.

Nguyen Tran Bat, a consultancy expert, also noted that Vietnamese hold records in spending on luxury goods, surprising foreign billionaires.

“A French professor, whom I had the chance to work with during his stay, when seeing a car driver smoking 555 cigarettes, asked him how many cigarettes he could afford. The driver replied that his one-day salary was high enough to buy 3-4 cigarettes,” Bat said.

“The professor then uttered: ‘You Vietnamese guys even spend more money than Americans’,” Bat said.

Dr. Vo Tri Thanh, deputy head of CIEM, has warned that Vietnamese spending has been increasing too rapidly compared with the GDP growth rate.

This can be seen that the ratio of domestic savings to GDP has increased slightly from 27 percent in 2000 to 31 percent in 2006 and 2007.

“The increasingly high consumption, especially of import goods, will upset the macroeconomic payment balance, which is really a worrying problem,” Thanh said.

Vietnam had a high trade deficit of $7.4 billion in the first quarter of 2015, while the figure is forecast to reach $19 billion this year end.

Dr. Le Xuan Nghia, a renowned economist, told the press that he does not believe the low figures about imports of consumer goods shown in official reports.

Nghia said the actual figures must be much higher. “As you may see, foreign goods are flooding the Vietnamese market,” he said.

Dat Viet