In this Brookings podast of Dollar and Sense, host David Dollar interviews one of the architects of Vietnam's reforms.
Over the course of the nineties, Vietnam went from over half of its population living in extreme poverty to less than 2% today. The guest, Madame Pham Chi Lan, attributes much of this success to normalizing relations with nations such as the US, opening up to trade, and engaging in market-based reforms that allowed a greater role for the private sector.
Moving forward, she suggests that Vietnam will need to stop discriminating against private local enterprises, which are the primary engine of employment. She suggests that the requirements of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact that the US pulled out of but which has since been revived under the leadership of Japan, could be one mechanism to encourage Vietnam to carry out this necessary next set of reforms.