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While Vietnam was being devastated by war during the early 1970s many
of the country’s scientists left to study and work abroad. Now back home,
they are leading a remarkable upsurge in Vietnam’s science and technology.
Biotechnology is improving crops on which this predominantly agricultural
country depends for food. Exports of agricultural products and know-how,
a source of badly needed hard currency, are being stimulated as local technologies
begin to offer the quality overseas customers require. And in the capital,
Hanoi, a flourishing computer science institute is providing backup for
Vietnam’s emerging industries. Even its director, Bach Hung Khang, is amazed
by the institute’s progess: ‘Three years ago I didn’t believe that Vietnam
would ever be computerised. But suddenly people are beginning to demand
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Science has a part to play in the country’s market economy inaugurated
by the government in 1987 with its doi moi (renovation) policy. Under the
new policy, scientists have been asked to make their facilities more self-supporting
and to find ways to supplement their funding by selling goods and services
at home and overseas. Money was needed to replace dwindling grants and subsidies
from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. In return, the scientists were
given greater control over their endeavours.

In Vietnam a bicycle is still a luxury, so it is not surprising that
the demand for computers has been low. A 1989 United Nations study estimated
that there were 3500 computers in the country – almost all desktop PCs of
the type that Western countries have by the millions. Last February, Vietnam’s
first mainframes were bought from French computer maker Bull – one by Vietnam
Airlines and two by the Hanoi office of the UN’s Development Programme.

According to Do Hoang Phu, general director of the foreign investment
department of the Ministry of Commerce, only a trickle of investors passed
through his office in 1988. But by January of this year, 217 licences had
been granted to foreign investors for a total of $1.47 billion. Of these,
five are joint ventures to build assembly plants for personal computers
intended for export to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

One PC assembly plant that is already operating is Gen Pacific, a French-Vietnamese
joint-venture located in Saigon (few Vietnamese use the awkward new official
name, Ho Chi Minh City). With local salaries as low as $10 a month, there
is no lack of applicants for jobs at Gen Pacific, where wages start at
$150 a month.

Much to Khang’s delight, the sudden demand for computer-literate workers
has made Hanoi’s Institute of Computer Science a popular place. Khang set
up the ICS in 1976, when he returned to Hanoi after obtaining his doctorate
in pattern recognition in the Soviet Union. But his efforts received little
attention before the implementation of doi moi. Now, working from a new
building on the outskirts of the city, he has pulled together 7 doctoral
students and a staff of 150, of whom 20 are artificial intelligence (AI)
specialists. Together they have been tackling research on software for AI,
image processing and expert systems.

The ICS wants to take full advantage of the new commercial climate and
is developing software for domestic and foreign consumption. Despite being
limited to nothing more powerful than 50 PCs and a handful of workstations,
Khang’s young team has put together AI software that his students claim
can compete with the best. ‘When we design software,’ said one student,
‘we want it to be useful several years later.’

Among the products ICS has designed and sold are a Vietnamese language
voice-processing card and speech editor, a hotel reservation and accounting
system, factory production control software, a database mapper called POPMAP
now being used by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities, and
a document scanning system called ADOR. Khang prefers to spend his time
with students rather than with business, so has contracted a Hanoi computer
company called 3C to market and distribute some of the institute’s products.

‘Software sales have greatly supplemented our annual government budget
of $20 000,’ says Khang. ‘Although our monthly training costs are low, only
about $20 per student, we need additional funds to buy more advanced hardware.’
The ICS’s latest project now nearing completion, is an image storage and
analysis system for the Dongda Carpet Company, which annually hand weaves
800 000 square metres of intricate traditional carpets. The software stores
scanned images of each design and prints out a scaled copy complete with
code numbers that tell the carpet makers the colour of each thread.

Khang’s dream is to make ICS into Southeast Asia’s regional software
training centre. ICS has already trained a handful of students from mainland
China, and more are expected. ‘With training costs so low here, we would
like to invite our friends from Laos, Cambodia, Burma – and even the Philippines
and Thailand – to study with us.’ To attract more foreigners, ICS organise
an annual international conference on advanced informatics with funding
from UN agencies. Last year’s meeting was on parallel computing and image
processing. The conference this November will focus on Khang’s favourite,
AI.

While informatics is taking off in the north, about 1200 kilometres
to the south in Saigon, Chu Pham Ngoc Son has just inaugurated the Centre
of Chemical Analysis and Experimentation of which he is director. After
obtaining his doctorate in polymer chemistry in France in 1962, Son returned
to a Vietnam in little need of his skills. But by 1985, arguing that the
imminent open-door policy would increase demand for analytical services,
Son convinced the government of the need for an analytical chemistry laboratory.
By 1990, Son had gathered a staff, and put together government grants for
$100 000, to supplement $1 million provided by the French government for
equipment, research and training.

The three tasks of the centre are to provide analytical services in
areas such as agriculture, mining and medicine; to undertake basic and applied
research; and to act as an information and advisory service. Son has retained
his well-trained staff despite low government salaries. He displays large
posters showing photographs of the laboratories of the French Academy of
Science alongside views of the centre’s own laboratories. ‘I am able to
show the staff and students that in most cases, we are using the same equipment
as is available in one of the best labs in the world, so they are happy
to stay on,’ says Son.

In addition to its basic analytical tools, which include absorption
spectrophotometers, the laboratory has inductive coupling plasma equipment
which is particularly useful for detecting trace metals in agricultural
products such as rice, which Vietnam is again exporting. Some equipment
taken for granted in richer countries is still missing: the laboratory will
have to wait until next year for a gas chromatograph.

The centre is setting up a library of standard samples of Vietnamese
export items such as rare earths and essential oils. The centre has also
signed analytical service contracts that are worth $16 600. According to
Son, there is a heavy demand for various forms of physicochemical analysis
from Vietnamese companies who want to export food and food additives. These
analyses are required to meet strict foreign quality-control specifications.

Son’s own work has focused on designing a trap based on pheromones for
pests such as Plutella xylostella, a tiny brown insect that devours cabbage,
a staple vegetable in Vietnam. After determining the pheromone’s structure
last year, Son is now trying to synthesise it. ‘These pheromone-based traps
have been shown to work well,’ he says. ‘We need to develop alternatives
to importing expensive urethane-based insecticides.’

Just a few blocks away, in a sealed room lit by fluorescent lamps, Nguyen
Van Uyen is studying a tiny coffee plant growing in a glass jar. Designing
a better coffee plant is one of the latest projects of the Biotechnology
Research Centre where, as director, Uyen has tried to make the most of
doi moi including new opportunities for funding and contacts with international
researchers. Like many key Vietnamese scientists, Uyen studied abroad, obtaining
his doctorate in plant biochemistry in Hungary in 1971. He then moved to
France to do research in plant tissue-culture, returning in 1976 to help
to organise the BRC. The centre now has a staff of 40 of which 25 are researchers
– seven have PhDs. As Uyen puts it, ‘Our infrastructure is low, but our
brain power is high.’

The primary goal of the biotechnology centre is to find applications
for plant tissue culture and genetic engineering that will help to feed
Vietnam’s growing population. Its scientists are also working to develop
a fermentation system appropriate for the tropics. The BRC has already had
notable success in both areas – developing a Vietnam-adapted potato and
bread yeast.

Potatoes were introduced to the Red River delta near Hanoi by French
missionaries in 1890, but remained a minor crop until the 1970s when the
introduction of faster-maturing varieties of rice opened up the paddy fields
for three months of dry season – long enough to fit in a potato crop. By
1979, nearly 100 000 hectares were planted with potatoes. Despite a high
demand for potatoes, which at $0.20 per kilogram cost twice as much as
rice, the area planted with the crop has halved, partly because farmers
became frustrated with trying to combat potato diseases.

Now, the Vietnamese government would like to raise potato production
from the present 500 000 tonnes per year to 1 million tonnes, to be used
for home consumption and for export. Theoretically, up to 1 million hectares
of the Red River delta could be planted with potatoes, and there is a smaller
cool-weather growing area in the highlands around Dalat (1500 metres above
sea level). Researchers at the BRC have been trying to increase yields;
the 10 tonnes per hectare now being achieved is only half of the international
standard. This research has centred on selecting potato varieties that are
resistant to disease and well adapted to the climate.

Research at the centre showed that the European Ackersegen potato, the
most common variety grown in Vietnam, is susceptible to more than 20 viral
infections and to fungal and bacterial diseases. These include stem canker
(Rhizoctonia solani), blackleg (Erwinia), bacterial wilt (Pseudomonas solanacearum),
early blight (Alternaria solani) and especially late blight (Phytophthora
infestans). Since 1980, the BRC researchers have tested more than 7000 genetically
distinct potato plants representing some 100 varieties obtained primarily
from the International Potato Centre in Peru. Different varieties were needed
to meet the requirements of the lowland and highland growing areas. Three
varieties were found that are particularly well-suited to conditions in
Dalat. They are highly resistant to late blight, can be stored for several
months, yield 18 tonnes per hectare and – equally important – have a pleasant
taste.

To obtain enough plants for testing and to avoid the waste of growing
seed potatoes that often rot during storage, BRC introduced a simple cutting
and tissue-culture system of propagation. In 1981, Dalat farmers started
using tissue culture on a commercial basis to grow potatoes – the first
time this had been done in a developing country. By 1985, the new potato
varieties had completely replaced the old in Dalat, doubling both acreage
under cultivation and yields.

The search for heat-tolerant and disease-resistant varieties for the
lowlands is still under way. Uyen is now collaborating with French researchers
to try to produce genetically-engineered varieties that are resistant to
the bacterial wilt, a disease that is particularly devastating to lowland
crops.

While continuing work on potatoes, the BRC is moving on to the coffee
crop. Uyen’s group is using protoplast fusion – joining plant cells denuded
of their cell walls – to develop crosses of robusta and arabica coffee varieties
that combine fungus resistance, high yield and good flavour. Farmers have
already planted 20 000 of the selected varieties and Uyen is waiting for
the plants to mature.

Like other scientific enterprises in Vietnam, the BRC is pursuing business
ventures that can bring in hard currency. ‘We still have difficulty when
we need to import items,’ says Uyen. To help to solve this problem, the
BRC has gone into the banana business. It is the primary advisor to a Taiwan-Vietnam
joint venture named Pan-Viet, which is building a $1-million centre on
a 5000-hectare plot outside Saigon that will produce banana seedlings for
export.

Another project that Uyen is using to support the centre is yeast selection
and production. Before the unification of the country in the mid-1970s,
all yeast used for making the popular French-style bread sold on street-corners
of what was then South Vietnam was imported from France. By 1980, these
stocks had run out. The dried Russian yeast used in the north was not suitable
for the more delicate southern palates, so the government contracted the
BRC to design a strain that would survive in the summer heat and create
enough gas to raise the thick Vietnamese bread dough which contains between
20 and 30 per cent manioc (cassava) flour.

Researchers at the BRC selected an appropriate strain of yeast, and
then provided six local companies with a simple technology for producing
it. Each company now produces about 5 tonnes of yeast per day. According
to Uyen, all bread made in the south is now made from the BRC’s strain of
yeast.

Not long after BRC’s success with the bread yeast, Saigon’s beer and
wine manufacturers contracted the centre to revamp their own yeast stocks.
The biotechnologists are now attempting to develop a strain that can withstand
temperatures of 35 °C and a 15 per cent alcohol concentration. The hardiest
strains now available cannot tolerate temperatures above 30 °C or alcohol
concentrations above 9 per cent. Finding a suitable strain would mean that
the beer and wine companies could save the costs they now incur during the
summer cooling their fermentation vats. And a higher alcohol content would
allow local beers to compete with imports.

With Vietnamese science and technology taking off at such a great rate,
the government decided it needed a new organisation to keep track of it.
On 24 September 1990, it opened the National Information and Documentation
Centre for Science and Technology. Located in Hanoi, the centre contains
the largest science library in the country. In addition to 350 000 books
and 5000 periodicals, the centre has seven Vietnamese and foreign databases,
20 personal computers and a CD-ROM multimedia system. According to its director,
Dang Ngoc Dinh, 47 per cent of the printed materials are in Russian, 46
per cent are in English, French, German or Spanish, 3 per cent are in Vietnamese
and the remainder are in other languages, including Japanese and Chinese.
The facilities have proved popular. There are 26 000 registered users and
an average of 200 people use the facilities every day.

In addition to operating the library and data bank, the centre also
publishes several English-language journals – all published quarterly. The
first 44-page issue of Vietnamese Scientific and Technical Abstracts was
published in 1990. It provides English-language abstracts of articles taken
from 23 Vietnamese-language scientific and technical journals. A slimmer
journal, Technological Progress, contains brief descriptions of new products
and processes designed in Vietnam. A recent issue advertised the availability
of a chemical compound to stimulate plant growth and a method of processing
python hides. The journal also includes a section on products and processes
that Vietnamese institutions and companies need from foreign suppliers.
A more general publication, Vietnam Development News, includes business
news as well as technical and scientific items. A recent issue included
stories on Vietnam’s foreign investment priorities, rice output, a new national
park and a scientific meeting.

Vietnamese science and technology is now buoyant. But a major hurdle
remains: an economic embargo imposed in 1975 by the United States remains
in force. It prevents trade between the two countries and limits opportunities
for scientific and technological exchange and puts political pressure on
major American trading partners such as Japan to limit business and scientific
exchange with Vietnam. But while paying lip service to the embargo, even
staunch anti-Communist countries such as South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore
have been pouring investment into Vietnam since doi moi began. Intense lobbying
to drop the embargo has come from American business interests who see themselves
missing the boat while Australian, French and Asian entrepreneurs set up
shop in Saigon. The US government, however, is stubbornly demanding a resolution
of the Cambodian war and the problem of American soldiers listed as missing
in action who are not yet accounted for, before it will consider dropping
the embargo.

Despite the restrictions, American scientists determined to maintain
contacts with their Vietnamese counterparts set up the Wisconsin-based US
Committee for Scientific Cooperation with Vietnam in 1978. According to
the director, Judith Ladinsky of the University of Wisconsin medical school,
the committee sends about 10 tonnes of books and journals to Vietnamese
libraries each year. The committee continues to provide research funding
and scientific exchange, despite difficulties such as the inability to make
telephone calls to Vietnam. Each year, it sponsors visits by about 40 American
scientists to Vietnam and brings 70 Vietnamese students and scientists to
the US for research and study.

In Vietnam, the physical evidence of scientific and technological progress
as measured in new buildings and equipment is encouraging. But it is the
feeling of excitement and optimism radiating from scientists and students
alike that offers the best hope for the future of a long-beleagured nation.

Gregor Hodgson is a biologist and freelance writer based in Hong Kong.

The Vietnamese journals described in this article can be ordered from
NIDCST, 26A Ly Thuong Kiet, Hanoi, Vietnam. Telex: 412287 UKKN-VT.