The Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) is one of the most useful tools of economic research. The matrix can be used for policy analysis and economic planning, and offers an efficient means of summarizing complex economic relationships and identifying gaps in statistical information. Being an extension of the existing national economic accounts, a SAM is a consistent and complete representation of the socio-economic system that captures the interdependencies between institutional groups. It is both a conceptual framework and a data system that can support analyses of socio-economic policy issues, used to evaluate the socio-economic impact of exogenous changes, or serve as a database for general equilibrium modeling. This paper describes the construction of SAM 2005 which is constructed using the newly compiled noncompetative I-O table for 2005. In previous versions of SAM constructed for Vietnam, savings is often assumed to be equal to investment. In our new SAM 2005, this unrealistic assumption has been relaxed.
