I was lucky to get a cab driver willing to drive me to the airport. Things went smoothly and we reached the airport within eighteen minutes.

The airport was, unusually, not crowded. The good news of the day was that the former chief justice, who was at the centre of the storm for quite sometime, had declined to head the caretaker government. Though it was thought to be a bright beginning, a move in the right direction for the nation at the right time, but who knew that something more cynical, a major betrayal, was waiting for the country in the evening.

I am here not to tell the countrymen about the suffering they have been since then in. When I was flying I had the guilty feeling that I was fleeing the country. On the way to Hanoi it was a smooth journey. You know that on that very day the Suvarnabhumi Airport, biggest in Southeast Asia, was opened in Bangkok for air traffic, to replace the ageing Don Muang airport. It is actually in the nearby Samut Prakan province, about 25km to the east of Bangkok. Suvarnabhumi was named by King Bhumibol Adulyadej and means "the golden land" in Thai, although it's English spelling is certain to lead to mispronunciation by visitors as it is actually pronounced like 'su-wan-na-poom'.

The old Don Muang airport had three terminals, Suvarnabhumi has only one (very large) that handles all international and domestic flights. The size and the facilities are simply amazing. As a first day transit passenger it was also a bit confusing to me.

The level of English of the guides at the airport was terribly bad, their Thai and English seemed nearly equal to me. However, look at the size of the terminal building -- 563,000sqm, which is the second largest in the world. It is not hard to imagine that the final bill for Suvarnabhumi stands at over $3 billion. On the same day in morning I saw Dhaka, and at noon Bangkok. Fighting for power is also there in Bangkok. But in our execution we are so violent, so destructive -- no thought about the future, progress and destination.

I am yet to know much about Hanoi but it seems to be a much better city than the impression I was carrying in my mind. The places I have visited are more planned. Not many high-rises are there, but many are coming up. In the newer parts of the city, roads are wide and less populated. They look cleaner, though the ongoing APEC Summit may have a role in this. However, at the moment, Hanoi seems to be a city under change -- lots of construction work is on, buildings with signboards of multinational companies are everywhere. I got my mobile phone within 10 minutes of asking for it. I got my bank account opened without any deposit or any introducer, just the photocopy of some pages of passport and visa was enough.

Once, I asked my researcher in the Institute of World Economics and Politics (IWEP) how careful I should be in the streets, or in my residence, or from goons or law breakers. She assured me that I did not have to suffer from such fears -- law and order condition in Hanoi, or for that matter in Vietnam, is very good. I have not faced, so far, any trouble that I could report. In economics, these are the basics of development. Vietnam will go much ahead of us (already it has) within a very short time.

Food stuffs are cheaper than in Bangladesh. Cost of transportation is reasonable, but for communication it is definitely higher than Bangladesh. I believe that there is a decision to lower the cost overnight. But you cannot change the mental make-up of people of the country overnight, as this is considered to be a process and not an event. Neither can you do away, overnight, with the laws that have been piled up over a century.

But Vietnam's recent past was not that good. Vietnam doubled its gross domestic product (GDP) between 1991 and 2000. While the economy grew at the rate of 4.6 percent between 1980 and 1990, the growth rate accelerated to reach 7.5 during the period 1990-2003. (World Bank, WDI 2005). In 2005, it grew at an annual rate of 8.2 percent faster than its five-year average.

An analysis of Vietnam's output structure shows that in 2003 almost 38 percent of its total output came from services, more than 40 percent from industry and manufacturing and about 22 percent from agriculture. In 1990, the figures for these sectors were 38 percent, 23 percent and 39 percent, respectively. The figures for agriculture's share of GDP show a 17 percent decline over the period of 1990 to 2003 (World Bank, WDI 2005). Vietnam progressed from a nation of chronic food shortages to one of the world's leading exporters of agricultural and other products in the 1990s.

How much of this economic progress is explained by socialist political economy, or by Vietnam's own LG process called the doi moi reforms? As we know doi moi that began in 1989 consisted of two successive reforms: the allocation of the means of production (especially land) to individual households, followed by economic liberalisation and the opening to external markets. While implementing doi moi reforms, the Vietnamese government did not completely abandon its policy on both agriculture and poverty. Thus the questions are: Did Vietnam's economic progress begin because of doi moi? Or did it happen as a linear extension of the socialist policy measures? Or have both of them complemented each other in the economic progress?

For Bangladesh we also find that it started its own LG process in 1982. Though the initial pace of liberalisation was slow, it gained momentum in the 1990s. We have taken a lot of measures since then to open up our economy by trading off most of the state political economy, with market mechanisam to take care of them. The objectives of such a reorientation of economic policy were to attain growth and reduce poverty by making the private sector the mainstay of the economic policy strategy. Such changes in policies resulted in mild to moderate increase in economic growth in Bangladesh. Between 1980 and 1990, economy grew at the rate of 3.7 percent, while growth rate reached 4.9 percent during the period 1990-2003. (World Bank, WDI 2005). Though growth has reached a higher level in last two years, and is projected to do better in the current year, it is yet to cross the 7 percent barrier. We also find that the average annual agricultural growth increased to 3.1 percent from 2.1 percent between 198090 and 1990-2003. But Bangladesh has consistently remained a net food deficient country.

On poverty we find that since unification in 1975, the Vietnamese government made reduction of poverty a central goal. It was also considered to be a driving force behind the economic reforms initiated in 1989. Poverty profile in Vietnam is based on the 1993 Vietnam Livings Standard Survey (VLSS). Under the measure, about 51 percent of the Vietnamese population was classified as poor in 1993. The subsequent surveys in 1998 and 2002 showed that population below the poverty line did decline to 37.4 percent and 28.9 percent, respectively. The difference in number of rural and urban population below poverty line is very high (35.6 percent and 6.6 percent in 2002). The proportion of the poor population has further fallen to 20 percent in 2004 year (The Economist, 2005).

The picture of poverty in Bangladesh is still diappointing, showing not much improvement in the recent past. In 1991, a total of 47.5 percent in Bangladesh lived below the poverty margin. At that time rural poverty was slightly higher than urban poverty, 47.6 percent and 46.7 percent, respectively. In 1999, 45.6 percent were living below the poverty line, which declined to 40.1 percent in 2004.

Vietnam has emerged as a star performer in trade itself. It is one of the members of the rare league of countries which have aggregate trade amounts larger than their total GDP. With a population of 84 million, its GDP figure is close to that of Bangladesh's. As the readers might be knowing, Vietnam has become the 150th menber of the WTO, the pertinent issue would be to see the likely impact, on its trade and poverty, of this accession. So far agriculture has remaied the most protected sector in Vietnam. This could be well understood from the fact that in 2004, while the tariff binding coverage for all goods was 16.8 percent, for agricultural goods it was 24.5 percent.

As Vietnam joins the WTO and signs the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), it will have to bring down its tarrif and non-tarrif barriers on agricultural trade to harmonise them with the agreed level within a specified time. Secondly, it will have to reduce agricultural subsidy to zero level by 2013. This may affect Vietnam's agricultural trade positively or negatively, and may have an impact on the poverty position. Experience in Bangladesh shows a steady rise in prices of most of the agricultual commodities since it became the member of WTO in 1995.

Few days back I had a courtesy meeting with our Ambassador in Hanoi. He is a very nice gentleman. We covered a wide range of issues in our discussion. He told me something important about Vietnam. "Look I am seeing the developments here for more than two years. After 10 years Vietnam will be at par with S. Korea," he said. I had nothing to agree or disagree with him as I have not seen Korea yet. He went further, "Vietnam has a better prospect than Malaysia." He did not explain the reason. I played the role of an avid listener.

Fact is, the whole of East and South East Asia is marching ahead very quickly. In the race we have been falling far behind of them in every passing year. But the irony is, Korea was not a match for us even in the 1950s, forget about Malaysia. Now you see the difference. Soon after the liberation, we wanted to model ourselves after Korea. When Korea seemed too high a goal to follow then we started talking about Malaysia. One of our generals turned president once talked about modelling Bangladesh after Indonesia. I hope we will not have a day to hear about the Myanmar model for our development. Who knows? But at the moment it is Vietnam calling.

The author, an Associate Professor of the School of Business, University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, is in Hanoi for research under an ASF Fellowship Programme.