Deregulating electricity prices could create an ‘economic breakthrough’, according to Thien Dinh Tran, former Director of the Vietnam Institute of Economics, and reported by Dan Tri. He points out that it was done before with food prices and that it made a big economic differnce
Eds note: Deregulating electricity prices should be talked about more often. It’s hard to see past restrictions on price hikes as a key reason for the power outages that plagued northern Vietnam over the dry season. Last year the state power provider recorded a loss of US$1.5 billion but as electricity prices surged around the region Vietnam bumped up retail prices by just 3 percent and not until May of this year. The current (excuse the pun) system isn’t working and deregulation, even though it might hurt for a bit, is probably the best long term solution.