Monday, March 27, 2006

Health in Vietnam and Shoes in EU

In the Swedish Daily, Svenska Dagbladet, international health researcher Mattias Larsson defend the right for Vietnam to free shoe trade. http://www.svd.se/dynamiskt/brannpunkt/did_12210430.asp
Sweden contributes to a yearly 1.8 billion USD of development aid to Vietnam that exports shoes worth 2.6 billion USD per year, most of it to the European Union. Larsson remainds that Vietnam still has large part of the population in poverty and lots of children malnourished even if child mortality is relatively low. Vietnam badly needs fast economic growth to continue. Larsson rightly asks the Swedish government to work for solidarity beyond the borders of EU. Free shoe trade for Vietnam is a good task for Swedens new well qualified Minister of Foreign Affaires, Jan Eliasson. he has always linked global and local politics, will he take a lead re coherent aid and trade policy in EU?