“Vietnam ’s economy is scooting along” is a title of John Beveridge’s article posted on the Australian Herald Sun on Jan. 12, in which he described Vietnam as a “fast growing, economic tiger.”

Beveridge wrote that most of people he met during his fact finding in Vietnam “are incredibly young.”

In his opinion, Vietnam is “enjoying some of the most favourable demographics in the world,” with less than six percent of the country’s 86 million over the age of 65.

Meanwhile, “Western countries are suffering the twin drags of a rapidly ageing population,” leading to “an understandable fall in productive capacity and greater consumption of expensive, subsidised health care,” he wrote.

“The natural entrepreneurship of the people is rapidly flourishing as are exports of manufactured goods, textiles, shoes, oil and IT services as the traditional and still important agricultural exports are gradually crowded out,” according to the article.

And while tourism is growing quickly, Vietnam 's natural beauty, sensational cuisine and friendly, welcoming and well-educated population mean the sky is the limit here, it said.

The article quoted the Australian Trade Commission’s chief economist, Tim Harcourt, in his recent book as pointing out that Australian companies have been very quick to set up substantial beachheads in Vietnam as the country opened up for foreign investment and joined ASEAN and the world Trade Organisation.

Australia is currently the fourth biggest destination of Vietnam ’s burgeoning exports behind the US , Japan and China , said the article./.