Socialist Republic of Vietnam

HA NOI — Viet Nam has never been on the United Nations list of least developed countries, says the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development

Nor does Viet Nam meet the criteria for the category, it says in a statement issued late last week.

Further, the organisation says it has never published a report – as suggested by a newswire story – that Viet Nam had been removed from the United Nations list of least development countries.

The statement explained the criteria by which the UN determines that countries can be classified as "least developed."

These are: low income; economic vulnerability and a human capital weakness.
In its April 2003 review of the list, the UN Committee for Development Policy said that while Viet Nam was clearly a low income country; and marginally econmically vulnerable its "Human Assets Index" – a composite indicator of nutrition, health and education – did not meet the criterion needed for the description least developed.

In addition, for countries to be eligible to be added to the list, their population must not exceed 75 million.

Viet Nam’s population is 80.2 million.

The ceilling was included because large development countries, though not generally spared by poverty, are regarded as being less structurally handicapped in their development efforts than small low-income countries, which are more vulnerable to external shocks and face a great risk of remaining poor. Forty nine countries are now included on the list. — VNS