Economic Influences on Air Transport in Vietnam 2006–2019
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102764 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Transport Geography journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jtrangeo ☆ Economic influences on air transport in Vietnam 2006–2019 T ⁎ Kevin O'Connora, , Kurt Fuellhartb, Hyung Min Kima a The University of Melbourne, Australia b Shippensburg University, USA ABSTRACT Vietnam has emerged from a long and complex post-colonial experience as a fast-growing economy now embedded in the complex network of economic linkages in the Asia-Pacific region. Those linkages involve trade, foreign direct investment, and tourism. Their underlying geography is reflected in the geography of Vietnam's air transport linkages. An early set of air connections with ASEAN neighbours, especially Singapore and Malaysia, are still significant, though routes to South Korea and China are now more important. Within the country, the colonial structure of Hanoi as a political capital, and Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) as a trading city, provided the framework for domestic air transport linkages. Here too the geography has shifted to include a set of smaller cities, especially those with tourism activities. The Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh City corridor is still dominant, and now ranks as one of the busiest domestic routes within the Asia-Pacific. These outcomes confirm the effect of economic development on air transport in Vietnam. 1. Introduction coastal gateways, each with tentative road and/or rail links spreading into a hinterland. The second focus of the model was on the competition The post-colonial story of Vietnam mirrors that of many other between the gateways, shaped by uneven infrastructure investment and countries in the Global South. It experienced a war against a colonial variation in the productivity of each hinterland market so that urba- power, then a civil war, followed by shifts in political economy to- nisation trends favoured just a few places. Often a dominant city wards, then away from, communism. During most of this period emerged. These approaches spawned a diverse array of work on Vietnam was isolated from the trade and foreign direct investment transport system development, especially in Africa (Hoyle, 1973). This (FDI) flows between firms and countries that generated rapid economic research heritage points to the movement of agricultural and mineral development in the Asia-Pacific region from the 1950s onwards. A new products from hinterlands to port cities for transport to European political perspective adopted in the late 1980s opened the country up to markets as a major influence upon transport development. these regional connections and rapid economic growth followed. The Though colonial structures in Asia bore much resemblance to this purpose of this paper is to show how the underlying influences on model, the post-colonial experience of countries in the Asia-Pacific re- Vietnam's national economic development is reflected in its interna- gion including the British, French, Dutch, and American colonies (and tional and national air transport. This is positioned within an under- the post-war occupation of Japan) unfolded in a very different context. standing of Asia Pacific development, which is followed by background Here, state-directed national economic development (as outlined in the on Vietnam. The analysis then explores the interdependence between case studies in White, 1988) was associated with manufacturing and changes in international air transport and international trade, FDI, and focused upon a few metropolitan areas. In little more than 40 years, tourism at the national and provincial scale. that development lifted a remote “Far East” colonial corner of the world into a major economic bloc that spanned a long corridor along the 2. Transport systems and post-colonial economic development Pacific(Wade, 1990; World Bank, 1993). The development of the re- gion's air transport was grounded in this experience. Perhaps the most famous understanding of the way a nation's Manufacturing played a key role here not only as a generator of transport system responded to colonial and post-colonial economic local development but also as the focus of an organisational structure development was that created by Taaffe et al. (1963). Outlining an (subsequently labelled a global production system (Coe and Yeung, “ideal-typical sequence,” they showed initial contact involved multiple 2015). This system dispersed product development, assembly, and ☆ This paper is dedicated to the memory of Kathryn Ann O'Connor (MBBS (Hons)) who at 45 lost a five-year fight with ovarian cancer in November 2019. The last months of her life corresponded with work on the response to reviews of this paper. At that time she contributed comments based on her experience as a traveller in Vietnam and displayed her great skill as a writer and editor. She is sadly missed. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (K. O'Connor). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtrangeo.2020.102764 Received 29 October 2019; Received in revised form 1 June 2020; Accepted 1 June 2020 Available online 20 June 2020 0966-6923/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. K. O'Connor, et al. Journal of Transport Geography 86 (2020) 102764 marketing across a range of countries usually sorted in terms of the cost existent, and the vast land mass of China had to be bypassed. The and skill of the local labour force. Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese participation of Taiwan, Japan, and Korea in these production ar- firms, particularly in electronics, led the growth of the system via in- rangements necessitated sea crossings. To comprehend the influence of vestments in South East Asian production sites (Edgington and Hayter, this geography it is important to realise that the distance from Tokyo to 2000). Later these production systems incorporated China and then Singapore is about the same as that from London to New York. The Vietnam. This system involved flows of FDI and fostered “network mobility of people for business, tourism, and family ties across long trade” in parts, components, and semi-finished goods within the Asia- distances such as this depended on air transport. Pacific region (Athukorala, 2011: 65). Hence the economic rise of the Asia-Pacific region is associated with The movement of goods within these production systems was in- a set of cities dotted along a thin corridor that stretches from Japan in fluential in the growth of passenger air transport, as trade and invest- the north to Australia and New Zealand in the south. Here, primate ment flows are closely associated with air transport links (Poole, 2010; cities tend to dominate their surrounding countries and regions. That Cristea, 2011). Trade requires managerial and technical staff to travel corridor widened to accommodate China after 1978, and then in- from head offices to distant production locations and markets to corporated a previously bypassed Vietnam after 1986. The core idea of manage and oversee negotiations and arrange purchase or delivery. The this paper is that the economic links within the region's manufacturing, intensity of contact led to the establishment of regional headquarters in commercial, and tourism links had a strong influence upon the changes some cities (Ho, 1998). This business travel illustrated the “co-evolu- in the geography of air transportation to and within Vietnam. The rest tion of the geographies of air transportation and corporate networks” of the paper begins with insights on Vietnam and is followed by an (Liu et al., 2013: 26), which is confirmed by the finding of Matsumoto analysis of the overlap between changes in international air transport et al. (2016). It suggested that the business linkages between Asian and the strength of economic links expressed in international trade, cities are the most powerful explanation of the intensity of their in- FDI, and tourism, as well as provincial level changes. A final section ternational air connections. FDI in high technology manufacturing also reviews the results and explores their impact on the future for Vietnam, involved the re-location of technical staff. This was shown in the ex- while also looking at ways to deepen the analysis in future studies. perience of a cluster of firms surrounding Samsung Electronics in Suzhou (Kim and O'Connor, 2019) and Hanoi (Kim, 2020). The ex-pa- 3. Methodology and data triate communities that develop around staff and their families are likely to add to the demand for air travel as well through visitations This research utilized data on the change in the airline seats avail- between friends and relations in their home countries. Hence the par- able between Vietnam and international destinations, as well as at ticular form of manufacturing production that emerged in the devel- domestic city airports, for the period 2006–2019. Hierarchies were opment of the Asia-Pacific region created a strong impetus to the de- created of the countries involved in the international links and of city velopment of air transport. airports in domestic travel, based upon the share of seats available. This Manufacturing also stimulated air transport as it was mostly located step established the relative importance of each country pair and city, in metropolitan areas (McGee, 1995b; McGee, 1967). The early roles of and how that had changed over time. To provide insight on economic these cities were in colonial trade and administration (Dick and development, annual data on trade, FDI, and tourism were aggregated Rimmer, 2003), and as a result, they became the focus of early air over the time period into a single figure for each country or city in- services (O'Connor, 2019). From that start, many of these cities were volved. This provided a comprehensive picture of the economic activity used as hubs as airlines developed additional services across the Asia- that had taken place in Vietnam over that period and allowed hier- Pacific region (Bowen, 2000).