|
Archived Articles
Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
|
 |
Vietnam: Right to buy - 2Now it's official. A new law on the real estate market in Vietnam will allow foreign nationals to buy certain residences. The existing regulations in that field thus far allowed individual foreigners only to lease residences for longer or shorter periods. New policy aims to provide more legal security for small foreign investors, and for those expatriated former Vietnamese who may decide to return to their and their parents' homeland. Given the nature of the political regime in place, officially a communist country, this move is one more step away from the communist taboos and, accordingly, one more step closer to the market economy. A new law will allow foreign nationals to buy apartments in Vietnam, one of the last remaining officially communist countries in the world. The current regulation allowed only for shorter and longer leases of residential properties. The new law will not only allow foreigners to buy some of their residences, but also to convert, under some conditions, their long-term leases into property ownership. There are, however, some restrictions. Foreign nationals could buy only in special developments; they couldn't buy land or houses; the transaction will last only 50 years, after that the properties must be sold. The recent real estate market opening in Vietnam follows similar developments in China, Thailand, and Malaysia. Vietnam has gone a long way from completely centralized planning economy that existed until the end of the 1980s to the status of a market economy it enjoys nowadays. Inspired by the view of China rising fast in north, Vietnam has no time to lose in catching on with the market developments that occur in the entire region of South East Asia. One year ago, Vietnam became the 150th nation to join the World Trade Organization. The foreign direct investments in Vietnam per capita currently exceed the foreign investments to China. The economic growth is very close to what we can see in China and in India, and for many years it keeps among the best performers in the world. The local population shows increasing interest toward capitalist-style development, and despite the war against the United States that ended in 1975, it shows no resentment of any significant degree toward visiting and residing Americans and other westerners. Vietnam is by no doubt the new regional star that will attract foreign interest in the coming years. Adopting export-oriented economic model that made rich South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, Vietnam will inevitably increase its trade dependence on foreign markets, especially the United States and Japan. It's too premature to predict any political change however. In fact, such changes may only halt the early pro-market development. The image of China today should be seen in this respect as of what Vietnam may look like in ten to fifteen years. A more prosperous, more industrialized, more urbanized, and more open to the world nation, facing the next political stage of its modernization.
Vietnam profile: --------------------
See also the directory of companies providing real estate services in, and general real estate information of Vietnam.
|
See also:
