British Big Business Gains From Vibtnam War

The scan: The Week v7 no15.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive, opens at this page)

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from an EBéonomics Correspondent British exports to South Vietnam have increased four-fold in four years, reaching £4,800,000 in 1966 and the rate of increase has been faster than that of the Germans and Italians, French exports have been virtually excluded since 1963, In addition to the direct export trade from Britain, British firms are benefiting from the business done through Singapore, where merchant houses are handling orders for construction and other materials by United States contractors who find the big warehouses in Singapore conveniently close, Looking ahead towards peace and reconstruction the opportunities for British Business are excellent with banks like the Chartered and the Hongkong and Shanghai, Supplying the essential local knowledge. ‘ There are big sources of foreign purchasing power for the South Vietnamese economy, United States aid, and what might be called the local effort which comes from exports and from services to the enormous American Commitment here, No rice has been exported since 1963 and rubber exports have halved in the same few years. Altogether exports are worth only about $25m(£9m) a year, but services are worth about 400m (£141m). So there is no longer a shortage of foreign exchange for imports, As for the immediate future, the experts here are reasonably optimistic, and Nguyen Hau Hanh, the new Minister of Economy and Finance, is regarded as strong, able and experienced, He remains Governor of the National Bank, and is a sophisticated man with a wide international background which includes a period in the World Bank, He and the Americans have just worked out a new system of joint economic committees covering most suhjects and guided by a ~ central committee comprising eight Vietnamese and six Americans. Thee are expected to end the kind of friction and indecision which have often prevented the best laid plans from doing much good, Strangely, one of the things which economists seem most worried about at the moment is the possibility of a big increase in United States Forces in South Vietnam because this would tend to get inflation going once again,