Vietnam intends S&T to be one of the components of the nation's socio-economic strategy. Against that larger framework, the vision of the long-term aspirations of the Vietnamese people has been articulated by the government. It states that Vietnam:

• Aspires to be a just and stable society with a high quality of life for all of its people.
• Wishes to maintain the best of Vietnamese culture and traditions.
• Aims to become a market economy, to be competitive internationally, and to remove most trade barriers by 2006 when it joints AFTA.
• Intends to have the characteristics of an industrialised or knowledge society within twenty years.

This vision and the broad means of achieving it provide boundary conditions for the proposed technology and industry strategy. The broad means (i.e. achieving international competitiveness, acceding to full AFTA membership by 2006 and creating the characteristics of a knowledge society by 2020) are time-specific. These boundary conditions establish a deep sense of urgency, and place the competitiveness of enterprise at the centre of the strategy. This report focuses on the contributions that science and technology might make to the government of Vietnam's stated vision of creating an 'industrial and modernised society' during the first quarter of this century.