Vietnam’s Mineral, Oil and Gas Resources: Perspectives to the Year 2000

In Vietnam, there are various minerals such as coal, iron ore, bauxite, apatite, rare earth, and so on, but they are generally located in areas with undeveloped infrastructure and difficult exploitation conditions with, in addition, medium- and small-scale reserves. As assessed, Vietnam’s metal reserve index is only 0.1, while Thailand’s is 0.7, the Philippines’ and Indonesia’s each 1.54, and China’s as high as 8.39. Vietnam has abundant hydro power resources in the north as well as in the south and a relatively large gas and oil potential. This is a considerable resource for the economic development of Vietnam. Some minerals are forecast to have relatively large reserves in Vietnam.