Vietnamese and foreign scholars convened a seminar in Hanoi on April 27 to look into the significance of Vietnam’s national reunification in 1975 and the country’s 40 years of development since then.

Participants, including those from the UK, Russia, France, the US, the Republic of Korea, China, and Cambodia, delivered 70 speeches highlighting the role of the 1975 victory, along with the challenges and accomplishments that have arisen in the four decades since.

Chaleun Yiapaoher, President of the Lao National Institute of Social Sciences, described the victory over the US to reunify Vietnam on April 30, 1975, as a great triumph. That Vietnam, a small country, defeated such a world power is a major issue worth further study, he said.

He highlighted the substantial achievements the country has made with economic and political reforms and global integration through the ‘doi moi’ (renewal) process in the 1980s.

President of the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, Nguyen Xuan Thang, said the country has reaped important achievements thanks to ‘doi moi’, such as rising from a war-torn nation to a middle-income country.

During the years of the global economic downturn, Vietnam’s GDP growth rate held stable at around 6 percent a year, he said, adding that the United Nations had acknowledged Vietnam as one of the countries with particularly fast poverty reduction rates.

The seminar was held on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of South Vietnam’s liberation and the national reunification.-VNA