Viet Nam envisions a completely competitive power sector in the long term, including full wholesale and retail competition. To attain this goal, it unbundled its power sector's monopoly structure and instituted institutional, regulatory, and pricing reforms. Although considerable progress has been made, implementation has not been expeditious, with the government still retaining a strong vested ownership and management interest in the power sector. Further restructuring is needed to ensure complete independence of the system players and to attain pricing transparency. In this country report, the Asian Development Bank assesses Viet Nam's experience in reforming its power sector for insights that other Asian developing economies could find useful when pursuing their own power sector planning and policy and strategy formulation.

This report examines three economies in different parts of Asia---Georgia, Sri Lanka, and Viet Nam---that introduced power sector reforms in recent years to create a commercially viable and efficient power sector. Each took a different route in moving away from a monopoly state-owned utility toward the common goal of a competitive, market-based, and better-regulated power sector. This report documents the broad spectrum of their power sector reform efforts, experiences, and relative successes as well as shortfalls, then uses international standard indicators to assess their economic, social, and environmental outcomes. Other economies should be able to draw valuable lessons and insights from this report for their own power-sector planning and policy and strategy formulation.

This sector directional guide describes the context and rationale that will guide the agenda of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in supporting developing member countries with financing, knowledge, convening ability, and technical assistance to ensure improved the coherence, relevance, efficiency, and effectiveness of ADB’s energy sector investments. It outlines the priorities and focus for the energy sector in line with Strategy 2023. The guide is designed to be a living document, to be updated as needed to remain relevant to the dynamic development context of Asia and the Pacifi c. A midterm review will be conducted following the expected review of the Energy Policy in 2025.

The latest energy sector assessment, strategy, and road map for Viet Nam highlights energy sector performance, major development constraints, and government development plans and strategy. The report highlights previous support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other development partners, and ADB's future support strategy in Viet Nam's energy sector. The assessment, strategy, and road map will add on to ADB's 2016–2020 country partnership strategy for Viet Nam. The report also provides energy sector background information for ADB investment and technical assistance operations.

This review uses the OECD Policy Framework for Investment to present an assessment of the investment climate in Viet Nam and to discuss the challenges and opportunities faced by the government of Viet Nam in its reform efforts.

Despite starting as one of the poorest countries in the mid-1980s, Vietnam has achieved rapid developmental progress, reaching lower middle-income status in 2010. In line with rapid economic growth, Vietnam has achieved impressive progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) during this time. This paper sheds light on some elements of Vietnam’s success story, highlighting crucial policies in education and electricity sectors. It undertakes a forward-looking costing exercise that focusses on five sectors – education, health, roads, water, and electricity infrastructure. Achieving the remaining SDGs in Vietnam will be a challenge, with total annual additional spending needs in the 5 subsectors estimated at 7 percent of GDP by 2030.

The Little Red Book of Golf Wisdom is packed full of thoughtful and witty quotes on the game that has maddened, excited, and delighted generations of players and fans alike. Golfing legends, literary giants, celebrities, and politicians offer pithy and memorable comments on the sport that A. A. Milne once described as “the best game in the world at which to be bad.” Read musings on golf from such noteworthy folks as: • John Updike • Bill Clinton • Ben Hogan • Annika Sorenstam • Rex Lardner • Tiger Woods • Jack Nicklaus • P.G. Wodehouse • Althea Gibson • And hundreds of others! The Little Red Book of Golf Wisdom will entertain, instruct, and capture the essence of the game that has an irresistible hold on anyone connected with it—whether as a participant or a spectator. There’s a reason why people all over the world are drawn to a game that can easily break one’s heart. This book tells you why.

This book combines the fundamentals of industrial organization theories based on microeconomic foundations, applied econometrics and environmental and natural resource economics in undertaking a comprehensive review of reforms of the power sector and its impact on industrial and socio-economic performance. The book provides the reader with the intellectual groundwork necessary for understanding the workings and interactions of today’s reforming power markets such as in the ASEAN and East Asia that are striving to achieve the energy policy trilemma of affordability, energy sustainability and energy security. The topics addressed in this book include application of welfare theorems such as competition in and for the market in the electricity sector, market failures such as lack of electricity access, analysis of forecasting models under volatility, energy resource allocation such as renewable energy and competitive market designs of energy markets. Country-specific and region-specific case studies are used to analyze the progress and outcomes of market-driven electricity reforms across the reforming and advanced electricity markets. Therefore, the book derives policy lessons and provides policy recommendations in reforming power markets for the ASEAN and East Asia taking stock of more than three decades of global experience with power sector reforms. The electricity markets case studies are carefully chosen and supported by extensive data analyses as appropriate. This book on energy economics and policy is highly recommended to readers who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview about the evolving literature and status on electricity market reforms with a particular reference to Asia.

Viet Nam has become a leading regional market for renewable energy in a short space of time led by private sector investment facilitated by favourable support mechanisms. The Clean Energy Finance and Investment Policy Review of Viet Nam provides a comprehensive overview of the current policy framework, highlighting progress and identifying untapped opportunities for strengthening policy interventions that can help scale up clean energy finance and investment.

This 2012 Article IV Consultation focuses on the financial sector and macroeconomic situation in Vietnam. The authorities adopted a stabilization package in February 2011 in response to increasing pressures on prices and the exchange rate in late 2010. Executive Directors commended the tightening of macroeconomic policies in 2011, which contributed to declining inflation, stabilizing the exchange rate, and a rebuilding of international reserves. Directors also recommended that monetary policy give priority to reducing inflation and rebuilding reserves further.