Editing South Vietnam (section)

==Economy==
{{main|Economy of the Republic of Vietnam}}
{{see also|Commercial Import Program}}

[[Image:RVN-Economic.png|thumb|South Vietnam Economic Map]]

South Vietnam maintained a capitalist [[free-market economy]] with ties to the West. It established an airline named [[Air Vietnam]]. The economy was greatly assisted by American aid and the presence of large numbers of Americans in the country between 1961 and 1973 during Vietnam War. Electrical production increased fourteen-fold between 1954 and 1973 while industrial output increase by an average of 6.9 percent annually.<ref name="Kim">Kim, Youngmin, "[http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/0708/ym/ym1.html The South Vietnamese Economy During the Vietnam War, 1954–1975] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130513042801/http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sp/0708/ym/ym1.html |date=13 May 2013 }}"</ref> During the same period, rice output increased by 203 percent and the number of students in university increased from 2,000 to 90,000.<ref name="Kim" /> US aid peaked at $2.3&nbsp;billion in 1973, but dropped to $1.1&nbsp;billion in 1974.<ref name="Wiest">Wiest, Andrew A., ''The Vietnam War, 1956–1975'', p. 80.</ref> [[Inflation]] rose to 200 percent as the country suffered economic shock due to the decrease of American aid as well as the oil price shock of October 1973.<ref name="Wiest" /> The unification of Vietnam in 1976 was followed by the imposition of North Vietnam's [[centrally planned economy]] in the South.

A 2017 study in the journal ''[[Diplomatic History (journal)|Diplomatic History]]'' found that South Vietnamese economic planners sought to model the South Vietnamese economy on Taiwan and South Korea, which were perceived as successful examples of how to modernize developing economies.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Toner |first=Simon |date=2017 |title=Imagining Taiwan: The Nixon Administration, the Developmental States, and South Vietnam's Search for Economic Viability, 1969–1975 |journal=Diplomatic History |language=en |volume=41 |issue=4 |pages=772–798 |doi=10.1093/dh/dhw057 |url=http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/115839/7/Simon%20Toner_Imagining_Taiwan_Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf |access-date=29 January 2023 |archive-date=29 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230129001207/https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/115839/7/Simon%20Toner_Imagining_Taiwan_Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>