THERE is a telling frankness in the line from Hanoi these days.
Just days after Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet told Vietnam it would be 'cutting its own throat' if it did not do more to catch up with the rest of Asia, a senior finance official has called for US$15 billion in foreign investment to be actually on the ground by the end of the decade.
Dau Ngoc Xuan, chairman of the State Committee for Co-operation and Investment, also said, however, that $2.7 billion in disbursed investment - actual cash at work - would have flowed into the country by the end of this year. That is less than a quarter of the $10.7 billion pledged since 1988.
So $15 billion? You will be lucky, analysts said.
Just look at the way a confused and heavy tax system, the high rents, ad hoc rules and a shuffling bureaucracy conspired to derail the landmark 1986 foreign investment law, they said.
But once the dust settles from Hanoi's latest call for help, the long-term outlook was likely to be a little more optimistic.
Foreign investors, accountants, bankers, lawyers and car dealers in both Ho Chi Minh City and the still austere Hanoi all seem privately confident, though still wary of speaking openly for fear of offending the government.