HANOI OPEN UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGLISH
======

ASSIGNMENT ON THE SOCIETY OF MAJOR ENGLISH-

SPEAKING COUNTRIES

Title: THE ECONOMY IN THE UK, THE USA

AND VIETNAM

Hanoi, 2020

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION
1. Rationale ............................................................................................. 2
2. Aims of the study ................................................................................ 2
3. Significance ......................................................................................... 2
4. Scope of the study ............................................................................... 2
CHAPTER I: ECONOMIC OVERVIEW
1. The UK Economy
1.1. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing ................................................. 3
1.2. Resources and power ................................................................... 4
1.3. Manufacturing .............................................................................. 4
1.4. Services ........................................................................................ 5
2. The US Economy
2.1. Agriculture, forestry, and fishing ................................................. 6
2.2. Energy, mining and minerals ....................................................... 7
2.3. Manufacturing .............................................................................. 7
2.4. Services ........................................................................................ 8
3. Vietnam Economy
3.1. Agriculture, fishery and forestry .................................................. 8
3.2. Energy and minerals..................................................................... 9
3.3. Industry and manufacturing ......................................................... 10
3.4. Services and tourism .................................................................... 11

CHAPTER II: THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ............................ 11

CONCLUSION ............................................................................................ 13
REFERENCES ............................................................................................ 14

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 INTRODUCTION

1. Rationale
Economics is that body of knowledge which explains production,
distribution and consumption of wealth. Explains how the market place
behaves and why. Everyone needs to understand its fundamental concepts
for an understanding of the system and how it impacts us everyday. To
know more about the economy, we need collect statistics about economic
activity, forecasting trends and then compare the economy of Vietnam, the
US and the UK.
2. Aims of the study
Comparative the economy helps students to acquire better understanding
of the economies of other countries and discuss the economic development
of these countries until present.
3. Significance
By studying economics, we can discover new factors that may lead to
increase the national wealth. Modern governments are actively engaged in
economic Planning. The purpose of planning is to remove poverty by
increasing the national income and wealth and also by effectively
distributing the wealth.
4. Scope of the study
The study focuses on investigate economies in three nations: Vietnam, the
US and the UK. Then the data will be synthesized and analyzed to make
comments on the economic development of each country.

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 CHAPTER 1
Economic Overview

1. The UK Economy
1.1 Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
• Agriculture: Agriculture in the UK is intensive, highly mechanised
and efficient by European standards, producing about 50% of food
needs in 2008, with less than 1.6% of the labour force. It contributes
around 0.6% of British national value added. Around two-thirds of the
production is devoted to livestock, one-third to arable crops.
- Crops: Wheat and barley are commonest
- Animal: Cattle (both dairy and beef) but sheep are most numerous

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 • Forestry: About one-tenth of the United Kingdom’s land area is
devoted to productive forestry. The government-supported Forestry
Commission manages almost half of these woodlands, and the rest are
in private hands. Domestic timber production supplies less than one-
fifth of the United Kingdom’s demand. The majority of new plantings
are of conifers in upland areas, but the commission encourages planting
broad-leaved trees where appropriate.
• Fishing: The UK retains a significant, though reduced, fishing
industry. Fishing industries provide 55% of the UK demand for fish. Its
fleets, based in towns such as Kingston upon Hull, Grimsby,
Fleetwood, Newlyn, Great Yarmouth, Peterhead, Fraserburgh, and
Lowestoft, bring home fish ranging from sole to herring.
1.2 Resources and power
- The UK has relatively limited supplies of economically valuable mineral
resources. Important metals that are mined include tin, which supplies
about half the domestic demand, and zinc. There are adequate supplies of
nonmetallic minerals, including sand and gravel, limestone, dolomite,
chalk, slate, barite, talc, clay and clay shale… Sand, gravel, limestone, and
other crushed rocks are quarried for use in construction.
- By contrast, the United Kingdom has relatively large energy resources
including oil, natural gas, and coal. Self-sufficiency in oil and natural gas
and the decline of coal mining has transformed Britain’s energy sector.
Nuclear fuel has slightly expanded its contribution to electricity
generation, and hydroelectric power contributes a small proportion.
1.3 Manufacturing

Despite the decline since the 1970s, when manufacturing contributed 25% of
UK GDP, the UK is currently the ninth largest manufacturing nation in the

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world. Particularly strong pharmaceutical, chemicals, aerospace, food and
drink. Other important sectors of the manufacturing industry include tobacco,
paper, printing, publishing and textiles. Electronics industries also important,
having a broad base of domestic firms, alongside a number of foreign firms
manufacturing a wide range of car, scientific and optical instruments,
electrical machinery and computers, high technology…

Examples of major companies in these industries are Diageo, Unilever,

Cadbury, Tate & Lyle, British American Tobacco, Imperial Tobacco,
HarperCollins, Ferranti and Reed Elsevier…
1.4 Services
The most remarkable economic development in the United Kingdom has been
the growth of service industries, which now provide about two-thirds of the
GDP and three-fourths of total employment.
Growing service industries include hotels and catering, air travel and other
leisure-related activities, distribution (particularly retailing), and finance. The
United Kingdom’s many cultural treasures—e.g., its historic castles,
museums, and theatres—make it a popular tourist destination.

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London is an important city because it’s one of the top three financial in the
world, concentrate greatest foreign bank, the world’s largest foreign exchange
market, dealing in commodities, insurance, advertising are high successful.
2. The USA Economy
2.1 Agriculture, forestry, and fishing
• Agriculture is a major industry in the United States, which is a net
exporter of food. Agricultural activity particularly concentrated in the
Great Plains, a vast expanse of flat, arable land in the center of the nation
in the region west of the Great Lakes and east of the Rocky Mountains.
The U.S. has led developments in seed improvement, such as
hybridization. The mechanization of farming and intensive farming have
been major themes in U.S. history, including John Deere's steel plow,
Cyrus McCormick's mechanical reaper, Eli Whitney's cotton gin, and the
widespread success of the Fordson tractor and the combine harvester.
Modern agriculture in the U.S. ranges from hobby farms and small-scale
producers to large commercial farms covering thousands of acres of
cropland or rangeland.

• The U.S. forest products sector is very dynamic, and contributes a

substantial amount of employment, income, manufacturing sales, and

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 value added to rural forest economies throughout the country. Overall,
forest products comprise about 1.5% of the total U.S. economy, and
contribute about 5% of total manufacturing output in the country.
Furthermore, the forest products sector is one of the top three
contributors to most southern state economies.
• As with other countries, the 200 nautical miles (370 km) exclusive
economic zone (EEZ) off the coast of the United States gives its fishing
industry special fishing rights. This made the United States the fifth
leading producer of fish, after China, Peru, India, and Indonesia, with
3.8 percent of the world total.
2.2 Energy, mining and minerals
The U.S. mining industry consists of the search for, extraction, beneficiation,
and processing of naturally occurring solid minerals from the earth. These
mined minerals include coal, metals such as iron, copper, or zinc, and
industrial minerals such as potash, limestone, and other crushed rocks. Metals
and other minerals are an essential source of raw materials for the U.S.
building and chemical industries and are also a critical part of the production
of everyday electronics and consumer products.
For example, over 65 different minerals are required to produce a modern
computer. Furthermore, coal accounts for nearly 50% of electric power
generated in the United States.
2.3 Manufacturing
Manufacturing in the United States is a vital sector. The U.S. is the world's
second largest manufacturer (after China) with a record high real output in Q1
2018 of $2.00 trillion. The U.S. manufacturing industry employed 12.56
million people in 2017.

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The top three occupations in the Manufacturing Industry Group are
Miscellaneous production workers, including semiconductor processors,
Other assemblers and fabricators, Other managers, Firstline supervisors of
production & operating workers, and Laborers & freight, stock, & material
movers, hand.
2.4 Services
Services produced by the private sector accounted for 67.8% of US GDP in
2006, led by real estate, financial services such as banking, insurance and
investment. Other types of services are wholesale and retail, transportation,
healthcare, law, science, management services, education, arts, entertainment,
recreation, hospitality and accommodation services, restaurants, bars and
other food and beverage services.
3. Vietnam Economy
3.1 Agriculture, fishery and forestry
• Agriculture: Vietnam is one of the top rice exporting countries in the
world, but the limited sophistication of small-scale Vietnamese farmers

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 causes quality to suffer. Vietnam is also the world's second largest
exporter of coffee, trailing behind Brazil.

• Fishery: Vietnam's fishing industry, which has abundant resources

given the country's long coastline and extensive network of rivers and
lakes, has generally experienced moderate growth.
• Forestry: In 2003, Vietnam produced an estimated 30.7 million cubic
meters of wood. Production of sawn wood was a more modest 2,950
cubic meters.
3.2 Energy and minerals
Petroleum is the main source of energy, followed by coal, which contributes
about 25% of the country's energy (excluding biomass). Vietnam's oil
reserves are in the range of 270–500 million tons. Petroleum and coal are the
main mineral exports. Also mined are antimony, bauxite, chromium, gold,
iron, natural phosphates, tin, and zinc.
Crude oil was Vietnam's leading export until the late 2000s, when high-tech
electrical manufactures emerged to become the biggest export market. Two
refineries in Vietnam are the Dung Quat refinery and the Nghi Son Refinery.

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Hydroelectric power is another source of energy. In 2004, Vietnam confirmed
plans to build a nuclear power plant with Russian assistance, and a second by
a Japanese group.

3.3 Industry and manufacturing

Although the industrial sector contributed 40.1% of GDP in 2004, it
employed only 12.9% of the workforce. Manufacturing contributed 20.3% of
GDP in 2004, while employing 10.2% of the workforce. The top
manufacturing sectors — electronics, food processing, cigarettes and tobacco,
textiles, chemicals, and footwear goods — experienced rapid growth. Benefits
from its proximity to China with lower labor cost, Vietnam is becoming a
new manufacturing hub in Asia, especially for Korean and Japanese firms.
For instance, Samsung produces about 40% of its phones in Vietnam.
In the past decade, a significant automotive industry has been developed. As
of 2019 Samsung employs over 200,000 employees in the Hanoi-area of
Vietnam to produce Smartphones. LG Electronics moved smartphone
production to Vietnam from South Korea, in order to stay competitive.

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3.4 Services and tourism
In 2004, services accounted for 38.2% of gross domestic product (GDP).
From 1994 to 2004, GDP attributable to the service sector grew at an average
annual rate of 6.0%.
In 2016, Vietnam welcomed over 10 million international visitors. Since then,
this figure has continued to rise. More recently, in 2019, Vietnam received 18
million international arrivals. Vietnam keeps emerging as an attractive
destination. In Tripadvisor's list of top 25 destinations Asia 2013 by travellers'
choice, there are four cities of Vietnam, namely Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City,
Hoi An and Ha Long.

CHAPTER 2
The Economic Development
• The US have the largest economy of the world because the US is a
large country, rich in a diverse array of natural resources and arable land. This
country has strong government which maintains good public order, decent
infrastructure, and well-regulated trade both internally and internationally.

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The US has a very free economic structure, which allows a great deal of
flexibility in the creation and growth of businesses, it has a great deal of
international influence, which greatly facilitates international trade. It has a
long tradition of immigration, and immigrants have long provided both an
ample pool of labor and a lot of the innovation that fuels the economy.
There's also an impressive system of higher education, which turns out highly
qualified and skilled graduates.
• The UK have a strong economy. There are many reasons - some of
which are historical and cultural. There is no doubt that the UK still benefits
from its colonial past. Many of those colonized peoples have immigrated to
the UK and have made their economy more diverse and resilient. English is
the predominant language in the UK, and with the rise of the USA in the 20th
century, English has become the "international language" of sorts. And with
the UK being tied intricately with the European continent, the rise of English
in the world has also greatly benefited the UK.
• Vietnam’s economic is less developed than US and UK. Although
Vietnam is one of the top rice exporting countries in the world, our country
has not yet become an industrialized country towards modernization. Because
our starting point is still too low compared to the common ground of other
countries in the region. Industrialization requires high investment capital and
technological level, thus making it difficult for small and medium enterprises.
At the same time, our country also lacks mechanisms and policies to support
these businesses.

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 CONCLUSION

Politicians, world leaders, and economists have widely debated the

ideal growth rate and how to achieve it. It's important to study how an
economy grows, meaning what or who are the participants that make an
economy move forward.

In the US and the UK, economic growth is driven oftentimes by

consumer spending and business investment. If consumers are buying homes,
for example, home builders, contractors, and construction workers will
experience economic growth. Businesses also drive the economy when they
hire workers, raise wages, and invest in growing their business. A company
that buys a new manufacturing plant or invests in new technologies creates
jobs, spending, which leads to growth in the economy. So that Vietnam needs
to overcome limitations and take advantage of strengths, can learn about the
economic development of others developed countries like the US and the UK.

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 REFERENCES

https://www.thebalance.com/us-economy-facts-4067797
https://www.britannica.com/place/United-Kingdom/Economy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_the_United_States
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_in_the_United_Kingdom
"World Economic Outlook Database, April 2019". IMF.org. International
Monetary Fund. Retrieved September 29, 2019.

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