Thomas Heberer (2003) Who became entrepreneurs in the transition

'Former white-collar employees and managers of state or collective firms formed in our study [interviews carried out in 1996-1998 with 202 Vietnamese entrepreneurs throughout the country born 1940s - 1960s] the primary group of private entrepreneurs (managers 12.8%, white collar staffs 38.3%). This corresponds with a study carried out by the National Political Academy Ho Chi Minh (Central Party School) and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), according to which 42.7% of the entrepreneurs came from the state sector (civil servants, cadres). In 1991 a Swedish-Vietnamese study came to similar conclusions according to which the figure for former civil servants in the urban areas was 48% (in rural areas about 20%). This group of people not only possesses the best access to government resources and also to premises for production or raw materials, but also has good relationships with state or collective companies as well as to the authorities. With those advantages they have the right prerequisites to found their own firms, into which flow governmental resources as well as relationships with suppliers and customers from the former place of work. Moreover as a result of their earlier work they have at their disposal specific specialized knowledge.'

'At any rate 23.1% of the fathers of the entrepreneurs interviewed had earlier possessed their own company... [These] 'former capitalists'... emphasized that they had acquired through their earlier entrepreneurial activity knowledge and skills which had come of very good use in their renewed entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore a part of this group possessed sufficient capital which they had brought into secure keeping after the communist victory in 1975, and which could now be brought into use as starting capital. Capital and knowledge made possible the development of larger companies.'

Thomas Heberer (2003) Private Entrepreneurs in China and Vietnam: Social and Political Functioning of Strategic Groups Link

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