With little prospect of meaningful reform, the economy could get even shakier
实质性改革遥遥无期，越南经济有可能变得更加摇摆不定



Sep 15th 2012 | HANOI | from the print edition

FOR A Communist leadership that prides itself on bringing political and economic stability to its 90m subjects, the past few weeks in Vietnam must have seemed like a nightmare. There have been more bank runs[注], executives on the lam, arrests and credit panics than the country has seen in years. So febrile is the atmosphere that on September 7th the deputy-governor of the central bank had hurriedly to deny rumours that the government had just asked the IMF for a bail-out.

作为一个领导着9,000万人口国家的领导阶层，越共一直以来都以其在政治和经济稳定上做出的成效引以为豪。但过去几周的越南像是经历了一场噩梦，比历年任何时候都要严重的银行挤兑、高管潜逃和落网以及信用恐慌将这个国家层层笼罩。这一气氛紧张至极，以至于中央银行的副总裁不得不在9月7日匆忙出面，澄清ZF向国际货币基金组织寻求救助的谣言。

The mere presence of an IMF team in the capital, Hanoi, appears to have set off the latest wobble. Yet the recent unease really began with the arrest on August 20th of Nguyen Duc Kien, a flamboyant businessman and founder of the Asia Commercial Joint-Stock Bank (ACB), one of the country’s largest. Even though he left the board of the ACB last year, Mr Kien’s detention on vague charges of “illegal business” was enough to start a run on the bank and a plunge in the Vietnam Ho Chi Minh stockmarket index (the mind boggles at what the great Marxist would have thought of having it named after him). Confidence was further undermined when the ACB’s chief executive was arrested for alleged “economic mismanagement”. The whole episode reminded investors that after years of sloppy management and exuberant lending, Vietnam’s banks are in dire shape; and that corruption and waste pervade the economy.

一个由国际货币基金组织成员组成的工作组罕见的出现在了首都河内，这一举动也引发了最近一轮的动荡。然而最初的不安情绪始于8月20日阮德建（Nguyen Duc Kien）的落网，他是一名个性张扬的商人，越南最大的银行亚洲商业银行（ACB）的创建者。虽说他在去年就已离开ACB董事会，但他因受到“非法交易”的含糊指控而遭捕一事，就足以迫使该银行接受调查，并导致越南胡志明指数下跌（心想，伟大的马克思主义者们怎么会以他的名字来命名这一指数）。而当ACB的首席执行官因受到“经济管理不善”的指控而遭到拘捕时，公众的信心又受到了进一步的动摇。这一系列的问题也给投资者们提了个醒，在多年的管理不当和大举借债之后，越南的银行已是千疮百孔，腐败和挥霍已侵蚀了整个经济体。