II. Methods to be implemented for estimating Vietnam's national accounts

1. The purpose and scope of the research

    The research will focus on relatively recent data from the modern period ( circa 1895 - 1954 ) and on the macroeconomic series which are essential for the Asian Historical Statistics COE Project. As far as possible, the researchers are performing a critical evaluation of the statistics produced by the French administration and published in the form of Yearbooks and other official papers. This screening seems especially important for the following data : population, production, investment, consumption, public finance, prices and wages, and international trade. The essential objective remains however to achieve a comprehensive collection of data in order to propose to the researchers interested in Vietnam's economic history something close to a first estimation of Vietnam's national accounts before 1954.

    Following this collection of relatively available data, the main task should be to produce, using indirect methods, comprehensive and acceptable estimates of missing time series which are however essential : on production ( including services ), investment ( including investment by Vietnamese and Chinese agents and international capital flows ), and consumption ( including rural self - consumption ). It seems also highly desirable to estimate macroeconomic conditions before the commencement of colonisation or during the conquest ( circa 1850 - 1890 ), in order to evaluate the impact of French colonisation on Vietnam's economic dynamics. Annam Imperial archives and private Chinese sources written by traders living in Vietnam at the time, both in Chinese characters, might provide the necessary figures that may be used for this purpose but this task would certainly involve a time scale of much more than two or three years.

    Therefore, this study supported by the COE project should be seen as a first step with the coda that further improvements are necessary and would be extremely welcomed. It is the feeling of the researchers involved in this project that their findings will be extensively criticised as a consequence of comparatively easier access during the coming decade, to new private and public sources and extensive collections of data on specific issues. They would be delighted to collaborate with all those who are involved in improving the reliability of the data and providing information from their related field. Accordingly, the philosophy of this research will be to articulate the files used for obtaining times series, to specify in detail the methodology used for estimating or extrapolating missing values and to propose both original and estimated series.

    Finally, it should be kept in mind that Cambodia's and Laos' economic statistics are equally interesting for a comprehensive study of Southeast Asian quantitative economic history. The comparison between these two countries and Thailand would be certainly a fruitful task for understanding the integration of the Mekong area into the World economy at the end of the nineteenth century. As it will be necessary, for the collection of several data on Vietnam, to identify data concerning Cambodia and Laos, and also Kwang Tcheou Wan ( leased territory in mainland China, Canton Province, close to Hainan Island ), this may permit, as a by product, the obtainment of the same kind of results for the other parts of former Indochina.

    For various series, for example population, the data indicated in the official yearbook seems more accurate for Cambodia than for Vietnam. In this specific case, the implementation of the census was easier in Cambodia where reports by the local administration on the effective population numbers living in each family was not seen as an offensive intrusion into a field of Confucian authority as it was perceived in Vietnam. Differences in cultural tradition implied in Cambodia a weaker traditional administrative framework but not necessarily inferior data. We may assume that Vietnam's strong administrative traditions made it easier for the lower rank Vietnamese civil servants to keep the French administration at bay or uninformed with regard to part of the data, according to their own economic or political interest.

    Regarding Vietnam's statistics, the scope of the research should be consistent with the COE project general framework. The following list indicates the series to be estimated :

      1. Population, labour force and employment

      2. Agricultural production ( rice and other essential products ; volume and value )

      3. Mining ( volume and value ), manufacturing and cottage industries ( French and other foreign companies ; Chinese and Vietnamese companies, including the informal sector ).

      4. Services ( railways, tramways, trucks ; shipping ; electric power ; mail, telegraph and telephone ; banking and insurance ; internal trade, education health, civil administration, misc. )

      5. Consumption ( private, including self - consumption )

      6. Public and private capital formation ( including construction )

      7. Prices and wages ( Hanoi and Saigon )

      8. Public Finance ( general government, regions, provinces, cities and towns ).

      9. International trade ( by country, especially Hong Kong, China, and Singapore ; other Asian countries ( including Japan and colonies ), metropolitan France, French colonies, other European countries, the US, etc. ).

      10. Exchange rates, capital flows and balance of payments