SOUTHEAST ASIA DOES not, for the most part, enjoy a particularly strong reputation among foreign investors. The memories of the financial crisis are fading but have not yet been forgotten, while the emerging Chinese economy to the north is garnering rave reviews and billions of dollars.
If that were not enough, the recent blasts in Bali have stoked fears - perhaps overdone - that the spectre of terrorism hangs heavily over much of the region.
But not everyone has been deterred by the run of bad events. Walt Beglinger, a white-haired Swiss businessman far closer to his last deal than his first, has held fast for the past five years to the dream of bringing Vietnam its first adventure park. If he and his co-investor friends get their way, Ho Chi Minh City - formerly Saigon - will by 2004 be home to a sprawling integrated playground of rollercoasters, water parks, pop concert halls and hotdog stands.
The project is perhaps emblematic of the changes that the country has undergone in recent years. Although the Communist Party that vanquished United States forces in the 1970s retains its iron grip on the political process, economic reform has been promoted assiduously. As the rules have been relaxed, private enterprises have sprouted, the economy has grown and real incomes have risen.
Nowhere is this process more evident that Ho Chi Minh City, by reputation the gaudy, free-wheeling entrepreneurial cousin to its more restrained northern relative, Hanoi.
'The development is breathtaking really. Of course, now I have to qualify, this is true for the southern tip of Vietnam, essentially for Saigon. Saigon is for me Shanghai 25 years ago, maybe Singapore 30 years ago. You've got high-rises in the city, you have got still the old Southeast Asian flavour,' Mr Beglinger says.
