Vietnam economy faces 'perfect storm'

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HANOI, Dec 1 (AFP): Worried foreign business groups warned today that Vietnam, a darling of foreign investors until a year ago, now faces "a perfect storm" of challenges amid the global economic turmoil.
The communist government must drive forward long-stalled reforms or risk dropping further behind its Asian competitors, major foreign chambers of commerce warned at the Vietnam Business Forum (VBF) conference in Hanoi.
"Economic news across the world is almost uniformly bad," said Michael Pease, chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam.
"The availability of debt and equity for investment into Vietnam has shrunk dramatically over the past few months. There is entrenched pessimism about the prospects of many announced projects moving forward to completion."