‘Hunger era’ in Vietnam – P2: Malnutrition spread to all corners
Wednesday, April 22, 2015, 16:50 GMT+7
A person in Ho Chi Minh City was granted only six kilograms of rice a month in the state-subsidized period between the late 1970s and the late 1980s but even the subsidy itself was not ensured back then.
Then-Ho Chi Minh City Party Secretary Vo Van Kiet, who later became the prime minister in 1991-97, once warned that the warehouses of the city only stored enough rice for residents to use for a couple of days.
Despite a shortage of rice supply due to a reduction in production as a result of wrong polices in national economic and political management, Ho Chi Minh City then had to provide aid for Hanoi and other northern localities, where malnutrition was even worse.
