Tycoon to the rescue as cheaper China floods Vietnam’s economy

Soldier-turned-tycoon Nguyen Huu Duong is a fierce patriot still fighting to protect his country, four decades after battling American forces in the Vietnam War.

The construction mogul has amassed a war chest of tens of millions of dollars to fight for greater independence for Vietnam’s economy and counter an invasion of a different kind: Chinese goods.

Rapid growth in Vietnam is masking a chronically ill small-business sector that the rags-to-riches entrepreneur says is suffocated by a multi-billion dollar influx of cheap, mass-produced goods from China, under-cutting domestically produced items.

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