ogy, high value added industries such as semi-conductors, industrial robots and computers. Japanese manufactures than began investing heavily in foreign countries because of it's own rising yen. This massive outflow of money pushed many Japanese financial institutions to the top of the global financial markets. Japan was also the world largest importer of agricultural products where 60% of its food is imported. (Rich 192). If counted based on efficiency however, per unit of land, Japan is the most efficient in the world. Greater prosperity lead to a big demand for consumer goods. Western style clothing became very common and wheat products, meat and vegetables took the place of rice in many Japanese dishes. Scotch whiskey was now drunk in place of the traditional sake. The Japanese people now wanted to acquire more twentieth century gadgets - color televisions, electric sewing machine, washing machines, motor cars and so on. Western sports became very popular - in the 70's, there were already about 7,000 golf courses. By September 1986, the Japanese had a massive current account surplus of $10 billion U.S dollars. ( World 251). All this was a result of deep government planning, growth with high depreciation allowance, cheap loans, subsidies and light taxes. The Japanese recovery from its defeat in the Second War presents a truly remarkable story of persistence, determination and hard work by an entire population, and considerable financial and diplomatic skill. Vietnam was the latest among these countries to emerge as a 'gold mine'. This was set back by the Vietnam War in the 60's and the 70's. The war practically crippled the country's economy. Vietnam's economy grew based on a five-year plan system. This has brought moderate success in repairing of three decades of war on infrastructure, forest and farmland. By the mid-1980's, the government began to liberalize in an attempt to encourage new resources. In 1987, businesses were g...
