Military expenditures-percent of GDP: 2.7% (1995)
@Vietnam:Transnational Issues
Disputes-international: maritime boundary with Cambodia not defined; involved in a complex dispute over the Spratly Islands with China, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and possibly Brunei; maritime boundary with Thailand resolved, August 1997; maritime boundary dispute with China in the Gulf of Tonkin; Paracel Islands occupied by China but claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan; offshore islands and sections of boundary with Cambodia are in dispute; sections of land border with China are indefinite
Illicit drugs: key growing areas in Vietnam cultivated 6,150 hectares of poppy in 1997 (an increase of 95% over 1996), with a potential production of 45 metric tons (an increase of 80% over 1996) of opium; opium producer and probably minor transit point for Southeast Asian heroin destined for the US and Europe; growing opium addiction; possible small-scale heroin production
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VIRGIN ISLANDS
(territory of the US)
@Virgin Islands:Geography
Location: Caribbean, islands between the Caribbean Sea and the North
Atlantic Ocean, east of Puerto Rico
Geographic coordinates: 18 20 N, 64 50 W