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Upper-Middle-Income Bar Met Four Years Early

The World Bank's July 1 update gets Vietnam into the upper-middle-income bracket for fiscal 2027, clearing the $4,636 GNI per capita floor four years ahead of the Communist Party's timetable. The reclassification rests on 2025 income data. The same cycle update also moved the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Jordan and Micronesia up a tier. The bigger number is set for the year 2045. Party targets call for high-income status by then, and the Academy of Finance calculates that Vietnam needs at least 5 percent average yearly GDP growth from 2026 through 2044. Interestingly, even 8 percent growth would only move the finish line up a single year. Upper-middle-income status will also start phasing out the cheap financing that came with the lower tier, just at the moment that Hanoi is trying to raise $1.2 trillion in private capital by 2030.

Read more: VnEconomy

SCB Sees 9.5% Growth, Below Hanoi Target

Standard Chartered Bank is expecting to see 9.5% GDP growth in 2026, a bigger print that UOB's 8.5% call, and SCB is crediting a manufacturing recovery, services and a wave of infrastructure spending for the lift. The bank also cut its inflation forecast to 4.4% and says that it expects the State Bank of Vietnam to hold rates steady. Nine and a half percent is still short of the double-digit figure Hanoi’s treated as a political imperative since To Lam became Party chief in mid-2024, however, but StanChart has penciled in 11% for 2027.

Read more: VnExpress (economist comments), Fulcrum (credit targets)

Chips Move Up On the Priority List

The Ministry of Industry and Trade wants semiconductors, rare earths, high-tech electronics and offshore wind added to a draft Law on Key Industries, moving chips into the same legal category as steel and railways for the first time. The Ministry of Justice published the dossier on Tuesday, the same day QTSC and the Singapore Semiconductor Industry Association signed a cooperation deal for business networking, R&D, technology transfer and workforce development.

Ho Chi Minh City isn’t waiting on Hanoi's lawyers. It wants 9,000 semiconductor workers trained by 2030, backed by a proposed $5 million chip design fund and a five-year personal income tax exemption for experts at Saigon Hi-Tech Park and for semiconductor startups. The city is already host to 54 semiconductor projects worth more than $5.1 billion.

Read more: VnEconomy (priority industries), VnEconomy (Singapore trade), Tuoi Tre (tax break), TechNode Global (FPT training deal)

US Halves Plywood Duty, Keeps China Locked Out

The US Department of Commerce cut its final antidumping duty on Vietnamese hardwood plywood to 90.12%, down from a preliminary 196.14%, after auditors spent June combing through the books of Nhat Duy and Trieu Thai Son. Their cooperation now is to the benefit of everyone else in the country. The duty will require a cash deposit of $90,120 on every $100,000 shipment, which is steep when compared against export margins of 5 to 6%, but survivable for an industry that shipped $9.46 billion of wood products into the US last year.

China got no such break. Its two biggest mills refused to answer Commerce's questionnaire, leaving the whole industry locked at a 187.27% dumping rate plus an 88.96% subsidy duty if the ITC finds injury by September 4. Indonesian suppliers settled on between 15.40% and 84.94%, with most at 18.10%.

Read more: Woodcentral (Indonesian rates), Fordaq (cash deposits)

Hanoi Prices a Crypto Trade

Decree 284, issued July 16, sets unlicensed crypto trading fines at VND 30 million to 50 million (about $1,140 to $1,900). Companies offering or advertising crypto services without a license will be liable for fines of up to VND 200 million ($7,600). The rules will come into effect September 1 and target the millions of Vietnamese using Binance, OKX and Bybit in a market that is ranked fourth globally for crypto adoption. The obvious problem is that the Ministry of Finance has not yet licensed a single domestic exchange, even though five applicants including VPBank-connected CAEX and Techcombank-connected TCEX cleared initial review in May. Deputy Finance Minister Nguyen Duc Chi says he’s aiming for a third-quarter launch.

Read more: The Block (company fines), TradingView (Bybit expansion), VnEconomy (RWA sandbox)

VinFast Bets on Hatchback to Break Even by 2027

VinFast delivered 17,955 vehicles in June, meaning that first-half volume was a heady 115,916 units, an almost three-quarter increase from a year earlier and the first time any automaker has cleared 100,000 domestic deliveries in a Vietnamese half-year. The company expects to break even at home by 2027 and turn a global profit shortly after.

The bet rests heavily on the VF 2, a VND188 million ($7,139!) hatchback that took about 29,000 orders in its first three days on sale. The optimism needs to perhaps be tempered by a Q1 net loss of VND28.1 trillion, almost three-fifths wider than a year earlier, and an unresolved North Carolina lawsuit that wants to reclaim the site of VinFast's planned US factory.

Read more: Bloomberg (Pham), Yahoo Finance (revenue outlook), Just Auto (factory plan)

Vietnam Airlines Adds 19 More 737 MAX Leases

Vietnam Airlines is leasing 19 more Boeing 737 MAX 8s on top of the 50 it already has on order, bringing its planned fleet of the type to 69. The aircraft will come from three lessors (10 from SMBC Aviation Capital, five from Phoenix Aviation Capital and four from Avolon). Deliveries start in 2028.

The narrowbodies are expected to fly domestic and short- to medium-haul international routes. They will crack open a narrowbody fleet currently made up entirely of Airbus jets. The carrier reported a VND3.95 trillion ($150.1 million) pre-tax profit in Q1 2026 but says performance has been hurt since April by jet fuel prices. Domestic passenger growth has stalled to almost nothing in the first half of 2026, but international traffic rose more than 15% to 26.2 million.

Read more: Aerospace Global News (fuel efficiency), Breaking Travel News (chairman), Tuoi Tre (route growth), VnExpress (cargo), Aviation Week (seat share)

Wage Council Backs Minimum Wage Bump for ‘27

The National Wage Council has backed a 7.8% minimum wage rise for January 1, 2027, up slightly over the 7.2% increase that took effect this January. Monthly floors would go up between VND340,000 and VND390,000 ($12.94 to $14.85) depending on region. Zone 1 includes Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Government approval is still pending, but if signed off, it would be the largest increase in two years.

Read more: VnEconomy

USDA Puts Cash Into Tilapia to Displace China

The USDA is funding a $15.6 million project in nine provinces in the Mekong and Red River deltas to lift tilapia output to 1.21 million tons and $1.25 billion in revenue by 2030. Exports to the US reached $53 million in 2025, up 173 percent year on year, making America the largest buyer. Hanoi's fisheries department is clear that the move is to try and partly replace what US importers currently buy from China.

Read more: Tuoi Tre

Grab Plugs Into EV Charging With EBOOST Stake

Grab has taken a stake in charging firm EBOOST, terms undisclosed, with plans to grow the network from about 2,500 ports today to more than 6,000 by early 2028. Almost half are expected to show up in Hanoi under a June 2026 agreement with the city's Department of Construction to build shared public charging that drivers can find, use and pay for through the Grab Driver app.

EBOOST went live inside the app in April 2026, and of the more than 400 ports connected to date, more than 70 percent of drivers who plug in once return within a week. Thousands more ports have been sized for electric motorbikes, the workhorse of Grab's driver fleet, to be rolled out in the next wave.

Read more: TechNode Global

Security Min's Tech Arm Takes On HCMC Metro

GTEL, the tech arm of the Ministry of Public Security, signed on July 17 to handle system integration and technology transfer for Ho Chi Minh City's metro network, starting with Line 2 and extending itself out to projects scheduled through 2030. The scope included signaling, power supply, fare collection and an eventual integrated control center for the planned 1,000km network. No foreign vendors were named and no procurement timeline was shared. City vice chairman Hoang Nguyen Dinh said raising the localization rate would cut costs and protect “nationally important infrastructure.”

Read more: VnExpress

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UOB Lifts Growth to 8.5%, Hanoi Wants 10%

Singapore's UOB raised its 2026 Vietnam growth forecast to 8.5% on the back of a 8.18% first-half expansion (the fastest in SEA), and a 61% increase in FDI to $34.7 billion. The Asian Development Bank is less impressed and is sticking with 7.2%. Both numbers are well below what Hanoi wants. The government's scenario for reaching 10% full-year growth needs 11.5% to 12% in the second half, an optimistic bar. The trade balance flipped from surplus to a $16.65 billion deficit as machinery, component, and electronics imports have begun to outrun exports. About 25,200 businesses left the market each month in the first half, as SMEs got squeezed by financing costs and weak demand. Inflation was 4.38%, the highest first-half reading in five years, and just a hair below the National Assembly's 4.5% ceiling. US tariffs that will be due in late July have not yet been factored in.

Read more: VnExpress (dong forecast), VnEconomy (policy moves), VnEconomy (inflation), VnEconomy (regional growth)

PNJ Lab Chief Charged for Diamond Smuggling

Thanh Hoa police have charged 31 people in a smuggling ring that moved more than 30,000 diamonds worth $57 million from India through Hong Kong since 2024, making VND300 billion ($11.4 million) in profit. Among the accused are PNJ Laboratory appraiser Tran Tien Nhu Nghi and former PNJ Laboratory director Dang Ngoc Thao, who police say stripped laser inscriptions off Indian stones and replaced them with the company's mark. Three Ho Chi Minh City jewelry store owners were also charged. Buyers and Indian couriers worked together by way of auto-deleting WhatsApp and Viber chats, and they used serial numbers on US dollar bills as transaction codes. Stones were hidden in luggage, shoes, and clothing on flights into Tan Son Nhat, Da Nang, Noi Bai, and Phu Quoc, then sold for about a third below market to small retailers and new gem businesses. PNJ shares have dropped more by about a third since the news broke, even though customs data shows that legitimate diamond imports were $121 million in the first half. India shipped $63.2 million, more than half of what it sent in all of 2025. PNJ is trying to distance the company, saying the matter involves "individual legal liability."

Read more: Bloomberg (PNJ shares), CNA (raids), VnEconomy (seizures), Tuoi Tre (shipments), VnExpress (imports)

Long Thanh to Undercut Tan Son Nhat on Fees

Long Thanh International Airport will accept its first commercial flight on December 1, the crescendo event of a $12.8 billion build. State operator Airports Corporation of Vietnam has told contractors to finish work by September to allow three months for equipment testing, and is offering 20% to 50% discounts on aviation service fees through 2027 to try and lure carriers away from overcrowded Tan Son Nhat. Vietnam Airlines has signed up for Long Thanh routes to Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, and Manila, in addition to a domestic leg to Hanoi. Vietjet wants domestic connections to Hanoi, Hai Phong, Vinh, and Thanh Hoa. The handover will be run in three phases through March 2028, eventually moving more than 90% of the area's international traffic 40 km east of Ho Chi Minh City. About 70% of passengers are expected to travel on to Ho Chi Minh City, and until rail and metro links open, the widening HCMC-Long Thanh Expressway is the only way in. The main part of it is only about three-fifths complete.

Read more: VnExpress (capacity), VnExpress (roads), Tuoi Tre (expressway), Tuoi Tre (passengers)

$1.2 Trillion in Private Capital Needed by 2030

The cost of Vietnam’s ambition is going to be about $1.5 trillion in infrastructure and investment between now and the end of 2030, and the treasury is good for only about $327 billion of it. The remaining four-fifths, close to $1.2 trillion, is supposed to come by way of private and international capital, much of it through the new Vietnam International Financial Center in Ho Chi Minh City. The center is anchored by the 55-story Saigon Marina tower and is expected to begin wooing foreign investors from 2027. A pitch to Seoul has already been made. South Korea was the largest source of new FDI in the first two months of 2026 at $1.34 billion, (nearly two-fifths of the total), and a July 13 forum with the Korean consulate lined up cooperation on cross-border QR payments, green finance, and asset management. Deposit growth has been trailing credit growth through the first half, pushing lending rates up. FTSE Russell's upgrade to secondary growing market status will come into effect during September.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (market cap), Vietnam Investment Review (growth target), Nikkei Asia (income goal), VnEconomy (QR payments), Tuoi Tre (Korean projects)

Three Editors Arrested For Ho Chi Minh Biography

Hanoi police detained the director, editor-in-chief, and editorial board head of the Vietnam Writers' Association Publishing House over their roles in the production of "Chuyen voi Thanh," a biographical account of Ho Chi Minh's years abroad. All three got Article 117 charges, which is the anti-state propaganda statute that was also used against author Nguyen Thanh Nam and an influencer who was arrested July 7. Under a January 2026 contract, Nam paid the publishing house VND1 billion ($38,087). Doan told state broadcaster VTV he cut multiple passages during review but admitted that the published version still contained content he considered inappropriate, including inaccurate history and material affecting the image of Party leaders. Yen made a similar admission. The book, published in May, was recalled after authorities objected.

Read more: SCMP (influencer), Tuoi Tre (detainees)

Honda Starts Building UC3 in Vietnam

Honda Vietnam will start making its UC3 electric motorcycle as early as September, General Director Sayaka Arai told Nikkei, as the company expects more urban riders to start buying EVs. If it happens, that will get Japan's largest motorcycle maker on about the same timeline as VinFast, which recently launched its VF 2 city hatchback at 188 million dong and expects customer deliveries in September. Honda has dominated the gas-scooter market for decades but has been cautious about electric two-wheelers while VinFast has built charging and battery-swap networks nationwide. No local price or output target has been announced for the UC3.

Read more: Nikkei Asia (Honda), Electrive (VF 2)

Sanofi and VNVC Plan 100M Vaccine Doses a Year

VNVC and Sanofi are building a 26,000 square meter plant to make vaccines in Vietnam. Construction is expected to finish by the end of 2027, and the first domestic batches (100 million doses a year for the National Immunization Program) should roll off the line in starting in 2028. Vietnam imported $486 million in French pharmaceuticals in 2025 and Hanoi wants to turn that import bill into export revenue.

Read more: VnExpress

China Overtakes US as Top Seafood Buyer

China bought about $1.4 billion worth of seafood in 1H2026, which was almost a quarter of Vietnam's $5.7 billion in exports, pushing the US down the list. Nam Viet JSC credits proximity, saying shipping costs to China beat the trip across the Pacific. The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers says new US admissibility certificates have tangled tuna shipments, shrimp still has high anti-dumping duties, and importers stateside are working through inventory frontloaded before tariffs arrive as American shoppers continue to trade down. Shrimp is still the biggest category at $2.3 billion, up 13.6%.

Read more: VnExpress

Vietnam and EFTA Close Deal After 21 Rounds

Vietnam and the European Free Trade Association finished bilateral FTA talks after a (half?) marathon 21 formal rounds. EFTA's four members, Switzerland, Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, traded EUR4.8 billion ($5.5 billion) with Vietnam in 2025. Vietnam had a EUR2.5 billion surplus, up from EUR500 million a decade before if you strip out Switzerland's gold trade. Norwegian salmon will benefit from immediate duty-free access once the agreement takes effect; mackerel tariffs phase out over three years. EFTA mostly sells Vietnam electrical machinery, seafood, pharmaceuticals, and mechanical equipment, while Vietnam sends back electrical machinery, footwear, garments, and mechanical products. Each of those categories has been growing more than 10% annually for the past decade.

Read more: VnEconomy

New Rule Sets the Related-Party Line at 25%

Decree 255/2026, which came into effect July 1, brings Vietnam's transfer pricing rules into a single text tied to the 2025 Law on Tax Administration and OECD norms. The headline change is that transferring or acquiring at least 25% of a company's contributed capital during a tax period will now create a related-party relationship. Loans from individuals controlling the enterprise worth at least 10% of contributed capital will also be counted. Wholly state-owned entities acting purely as debt purchasers, handlers, creditors, or guarantors, without control, have a carve-out. The lower threshold could catch minority stakes that multinationals have not previously needed to worry about, the first impact will be seen with 2026 CIT filings.

Read more: Vietnam Briefing

Jakarta and Hanoi Set $18 Billion Trade Target

Indonesia and Vietnam agreed to a five-year action plan to increase bilateral trade from 2025’s $16.76 billion to $18 billion by 2028. Jakarta has a $4.47 billion surplus which is Vietnam fifth-largest. In a recent deal, VinFast recently broke ground on an EV plant in Subang, West Java.

Read more: Jakarta Post (ministers), Diplomatic Insight (maritime security)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

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Trump Resort Replaces More Than 3,500 Graves

Bulldozers have cleared the cemetery in Hung Yen province where more than 3,500 ancestral graves once stood, making way for Trump International Vietnam, a $1.5 billion golf and villa complex spread over 2,446 acres beside the Red River. More than 4,000 (presumably living) families were also relocated with (accorinding to residents) “scant” compensation. The Trump Organization is expected to collect licensing fees and, eventually, revenue from running the club under a 50-year agreement. President To Lam's government, the finance ministry, and the Hung Yen People's Committee all supported the project, and the ministries of defense and public security are working with local authorities to support foreigners who will be able to buy into two "eco-residential" zones designed for 35,000 residents.

Read more: Asia Times

LG Innotek Puts $1B Into Hai Phong Substrates

Hai Phong has approved LG Innotek's $1 billion semiconductor package substrate plant, the first high-tech project to be given the go-ahead inside the city's Free Trade Zone. The 32-hectare facility in Nam Dinh Vu Industrial Park should break ground in Q3, start trial runs next year, and hit mass production in ‘28. It will make package substrates, the layer that connects a chip to its circuit board, which is a segment that currently has almost no domestic capacity. LG Innotek knows the city well, having arrived in 2016 with a $550 million camera-module plant in Trang Due Industrial Park. It now runs three factories there worth more than $2 billion between them.

Read more: VnEconomy

11.9% in H2 Needed For Double-Digit Year

GDP was up 8.18% in the first half of 2026, with the second quarter clocking 8.39%, the fastest Q2 in a decade and a half, but that’s still going to leave Hanoi short of its annual goal. Resolution 168/NQ-CP now needs 11.9% growth in the second half to close the year above 10%. Prime Minister Le Minh Hung told a cabinet teleconference that the first half showed "relatively positive progress," despite external challenges (mostly related to the Iran conflict). No sector-by-sector breakdown of the 11.9% target has been shared yet, so as of now, the number seems a bit more like political math than an economic plan.

Read more: VnEconomy (growth target), VnEconomy (PM Hung)

Hanoi Builds a Chip Buyer's Club, Foreigners Not Invited

The Ministry of Science and Technology has put together a procurement list for 16 categories of specialized semiconductors, including for AI, IoT, cybersecurity, and telecoms, guaranteeing state buyers for whatever domestic designers produce. Ho Chi Minh City also came up with a draft subsidy of up to $570,000 per chip design project, for training, R&D, pilot production and equipment, but only for companies that are established under Vietnamese law, headquartered and taxed in the city. Multinationals and foreign-invested companies need not apply, even though the city's $21 billion chip sector runs on barely 7,000 engineers. G-Group signed on with Hanoi's HUST and Russia's MERI to chase secure chip technology, microelectronics and nanoelectronics, restarting a research relationship that dates back to the 1970s.

Read more: VnEconomy (procurement list), Tuoitre (subsidy rules), VnExpress (Hanoi plan)

EFTA Closes Nine-Year Trade Talks

Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland wrapped up talks in Reykjavik, clearing the way for a free trade deal for the EUR 4.8 billion ($5.5 billion) in bilateral trade the two sides did last year. Footwear, apparel and mechanical machinery shipments to the bloc have grown by more than 10 percent yearly for the past decade, and the pact promises to cut or scrap remaining tariffs in a market Hanoi's exporters have found difficult to crack at scale. Electrical machinery, fish and pharmaceuticals are the products heading the other way. Ratification in five parliaments still stands between the text and any lower duty bill.

Read more: VnEconomy

PNJ's Gem Lab Chief Stamped Smuggled Diamonds Legit

Dang Ngoc Thao, 52, ran PNJ-LAB, the certification arm of the country's largest listed jeweler, and police say he removed GIA laser inscriptions from smuggled stones and etched his own lab's numbers in their place before issuing new certificates. The diamonds came from India by way of Hong Kong, and were carried over the border on 141 runs since 2024 by a ring that moved more than 28,000 stones and generated an estimated VND280 billion ($10.7 million) in revenue. Raids at 20 locations last month resulted in the seizure of 1,100 diamonds. PNJ-LAB is currently barred from trading any diamonds it certifies.

Read more: VnExpress

Lobster Exports Fill China's Tariff Gap

China bought in $506 million worth of lobster in the first five months of 2026. Imports peaked at $154 million in February, up 150% year-on-year, then settled into a steady $78 million to $87 million a month. Canadian, American, and Australian suppliers, hurt by tariffs and slow production recovery in 2025, gave up ground that exporters in Vietnam were positioned to take. Short shipping times by land and air keep lobsters fresher, and small and medium blue lobsters are priced well for Chinese buyers. China is the largest buyer by far, absorbing the bulk of a roughly $80 million monthly run rate that shows no sign of slowing.

Read more: VnExpress

Police Cuff Seven Behind HiAnime's Piracy Empire

Police arrested seven people behind HiAnime, the piracy service that once upon a time outdrew Disney+ and Crunchyroll with several hundred million monthly visitors, before shutting it down in June. The group ran more than 100 sites hosting more than 26,000 pirated anime films under a rotating cast of domains, from Zoro.to to Aniwatch to HiAnime.to, bringing in $12+ million in ad revenue between 2020 and April 2026. Four suspects are in custody and three are under house arrest, on copyright and money laundering charges.

Read more: BleepingComputer (ACE confirmation), BBC (crackdown)

HCMC Digs 41 Meters for Metro Line 2

Crews have begun sinking a 1.2-meter-thick, 534-meter diaphragm wall at Pham Van Bach Station, the first underground stop on Metro Line 2 and one being built 41 meters deep over half a year. The station will also be the launch site for tunnel boring machines and will be the gateway to Tan Son Nhat airport, the last underground stop before the line goes elevated. City Hall has carved out five transit development zones of 940 hectares along the 11-kilometer route.

Read more: VnExpress (line cost), VnExpress (TOD zones), VnEconomy (property impact)

Decree 252 Grounds Tax Debtors at the Border

If you’ve owed the taxman VND50 million (~$2,000) as an individual or VND500 million (nearly $20,000) as a company’s legal representative for more than 120 days, Decree 252 might keep you from leaving the country. Tax authorities are required to give 30 days' notice by email, registered phone, or the tax portal before making the exit-ban request with immigration, but firms that have abandoned their registered addresses have no minimum limit at all. The new rule replaces Decree 49 from February 2025. Foreign nationals departing with unpaid tax bills are explicitly covered, as well as overseas Vietnamese and emigrating citizens.

Read more: VnEconomy

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

Please go to https://www.mekongmemo.com/account to select country editions you would like to receive without affecting your overall subscription status.

Big Dong Dreams

Politburo Resolution 10 got its rollout in Hanoi, laying out a $200-300 billion foreign investment target with three-quarters of the total expected to come from developed economies. The quality-over-volume shift is real enough that Hanoi is redesigning its incentive structure, moving from upfront sweeteners to rewards tied to technology transfer, R&D spending, and workforce training. Mitsubishi Corporation Vietnam vice chairman Takuya Sahashi said Resolution 10 and Resolution 68 will be "two wheels" to drive the next phase of Vietnamese growth, adding that more than half of Japanese companies in the country are planning to expand. Dragon Capital chairman Dominic Scriven said it is "a very important resolution for foreign investors" and welcomed the explicit recognition of the foreign-invested sector as "an inseparable part of Vietnam's economy."

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (investment pitch), VnEconomy (2030 targets)

Hanoi Tells the Housing Market to Grow Up

Party General Secretary To Lam's instruction to put rental housing first is the clearest notice so far that the build-to-sell era is running out of road. Home prices in many areas are now more than 20 times annual household income. The financing structure that’s propping the market up (short-term bank loans / corporate bonds funding long-term projects) is the sort of maturity mismatch that tends to keep regulators awake at night. The policy shift puts forward a national housing corporation to manage public land reserves and channel long-term capital into rental developments that could take up to a quarter century to recover costs. That idea is closer to Singapore's HDB model than anything the VN has ever seen. Ho Chi Minh City isn’t sitting on its hands, as nine projects (almost 11,000 apartments) have broken ground since January, and another 59 projects are expected by Q3. Interestingly on the tech/ corruption front, a national property identification system was rolled out yesterday to give each asset a permanent code to track its legal status and transaction history, which should make price manipulation harder to hide.

Read more: VnEconomy (rental financing instruments), VnEconomy (HCMC unit pipeline), VnExpress (property ID system)

Chairman Wants a Buyer for His 30-Year Sentence

The Central Military Court opened a three-day appeal hearing over the transfer of 62 hectares of old Nha Trang Airport military land to Phuc Son Group, a deal that ignored orders from the PM and left the state with a 6.69 trillion VND loss. Chairman Nguyen Van Hau, now lumbered with a 30-year sentence from earlier illegal-bidding convictions, wants the court to let an unnamed businessman buy his shares in Phuc Son and assume the liabilities, backed by cash deposits or bank guarantees. Two former major generals are looking for shorter stints. Of the 683 stranded property buyers, 414 have hired lawyers to argue they are not victims at all. They signed contracts based on official state documents, and they want Phuc Son, or whoever ends up owning it, to fork over the land titles.

Read more: Vietnam Insiders (appeal hearing), Vietnam Insiders (buyers' claims)

Factories Humming, Dong Appear to Slip

The manufacturing PMI was reported to be 51.8 in June, the fourteenth straight month above the 50-point line (meaning expansion), though the headline number flatters a less-rosy picture underneath. Output hit its fastest pace since February, new orders held up, and business confidence saw a four-month high, but at the same time, employment was down for the fourth month, input stocks dropped (at the sharpest pace in a year), and manufacturers said they are still having trouble importing materials. On the currency front, the dong weakened on the black market to ~VND26,584 per dollar (Vietcombank's official rate held at VND26,466 and the State Bank's reference rate was unmoved at VND25,206).

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (PMI breakdown), VnExpress (dong exchange rates)

Hanoi Offers $228 for a Baby

A new population law offers mothers a one-off cash bonus of up to $228, free prenatal and newborn screenings, and an extra month (seven, total) of maternity leave on the arrival of a second child. The bonus represents about two-thirds of an average monthly salary. Pham Thi Lan of the UN Population Fund says it is a solid reversal, and a shift from controlling births to encouraging them after decades of two-child policy enforcement.

Read more: SCMP

The Paperwork Says Legal, the Logs Say No

The Environmental Investigation Agency's "Manufactured Legality" report documents how raw timber from Cambodia and Laos is making its way into supply chains by way of fraudulent documents, quota systems tied to dam and infrastructure projects, and logging that goes beyond approved boundaries. Wood of unclear origin is able to get folded in to processing facilities and comes out the other side carrying legal Vietnamese credentials. VNTLAS, the assurance system that is meant to give timber exports credibility in European and other markets, leans heavily on paperwork, and EIA says that paperwork is being gamed upstream before it ever shows up. Imports from Cambodia and Laos are only a small part of the total timber intake, but EIA's Thomas Chung was candid when he said that "Documentation is only as reliable as the system that produces it."

Read more: EIA International

Robusta's Reckoning Runs Dry

A new Coffee Watch report has arrived with a damning prognosis. More than 207,000 hectares of humid tropical forest have been cleared since 1990 in areas that are now mapped for coffee, and Central Highlands wells that once provided water at 10 to 15 meters are now dry down to 45. Groundwater is responsible for more than half and sometimes almost all of the region's coffee irrigation; researchers reckon that to hold the balance in some watershed areas, the coffee acreage should shrink by about a third. Coffee Watch founder Etelle Higonnet says "Robusta's Reckoning" got coverage in El Pais and Le Monde, but Vietnamese-language outlets have stayed quiet, which she puts down to government media control. Deforestation has slowed, the report concedes, largely because the accessible forest has run out.

Read more: Daily Coffee News

SG Pours Concrete While Da Nang Drafts Rules

UOB broke ground on a 36-story, $450 million tower at No. 2 Ton Duc Thang Street in HCMC, becoming the first foreign bank to own a purpose-built HQ inside the Vietnam IFC. UOB Plaza is expected to rise 160 meters above the Saigon River and by end-2030, and will give the Singapore bank a wholly owned HQ in all five of its core ASEAN markets. On the same day as the groundbreaking, a seminar in Da Nang was working through the question the rival VIFC-DN has been chewing on for months: what legal framework, what financial products, and what regulatory sandbox might attract the kind of capital that’s getting concrete poured in HCMC? Speakers highlighted gaps in the legal landscape and the absence of specialized instruments, as well as calling for a clearer division of roles between the two hubs to prevent overlap and competition.

Read more: Vietnam News (Da Nang sandbox products), Vietnam News (site footprint, sustainability), VnEconomy (UOB branch)

Outbound Capital Books a Flight to Singapore

Companies sent $713.9 million overseas in the first four months of 2026, a 2.3-fold increase over last year’s spend. Capital that once flowed mainly into Laos and Cambodia is increasingly finding its way to Singapore, Hong Kong, and the UAE. Singapore's pull is regulatory as much as geographic, as the country provides tax treaty coverage and HQ infrastructure that Vientiane can’t match. The full-year 2025 total was $1.35 billion of 1,991 active projects in 85 countries, so the early 2026 pace is well ahead of last year’s pace.

Read more: Vietnam Briefing

Muscat Money Gets Hanoi Silicon

G-Group got an investment certificate Monday for G-Campus Hoa Lac, a $300 million Tier III data center complex of 38,000 square meters in Hanoi's high-tech zone. The site will open with 20 MW of power capacity and headroom for 30 MW. Tucked into the announcement was OTECH, a unit of Oman's Omantel Group, which signing on as strategic partner along with the Hanoi People's Committee. They’ll bring sovereign cloud experience and capital to the table. Hanoi wants at least two hyperscale data centers as it tries to get a digital government running on big data and AI by 2035.

Read more: TechNode Global

Hanoi Prices Carbon at About a Fiver

The first local carbon exchange opened on the Hanoi Stock Exchange, and greenhouse gas quotas opened with pricing of VND 130,000 a ton (~$5.10), under a pilot for 110 facilities (51 cement plants, 34 thermal power stations, and 25 steel mills). The pilot will run through 2028, and a full national market is expected to follow in 2029. The opening product carries a volume of 511.5 million tons of CO2 equivalent, and the government is waiving exchange fees for participating businesses during the pilot.

Read more: Enerdata (compliance timeline), Cemnet (emissions cap)

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The Upgrade That Didn’t Come

For the second year on the trot, MSCI kept Vietnam off its upgrade watch list. The reasons for it haven’t changed much. Foreign ownership caps still cover more than one-tenth of the stock market, there’s still no offshore currency market, and the long promised Central Counterparty clearing house is not expected to be ready until at least early 2027. Vietnam has come out with some real reforms, including a global broker model that lets foreign investors trade without opening local accounts and a phased English disclosure requirement through 2028. MSCI acknowledged the progress, then still said no. That makes the CCP the milestone that we should be watching in advance of the next review in 2027. Citi sees things differently, calling Vietnam “a broader investment banking story” after Ho Chi Minh City launched its International Financial Center with support from Nasdaq, VinaCapital, Sovico, Son Kim Capital, and three commercial banks.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (2027 review timeline), The Investor (FTSE upgrade), VnExpress (Citi deal activity)

Hanoi Rewrites FDI Rulebook

Hanoi is changing how it governs foreign investors. A new Politburo resolution is making a shift away from the old play of tax holidays and toward rewarding companies that deliver on arrival. The government wants $200-300 billion in registered FDI by 2030, three-quarters of that coming from developed economies, around 10,000 Vietnamese firms supplying foreign companies, and at least three of the world's biggest tech companies setting up regional headquarters or R&D centers in Vietnam. The global minimum tax has made the old tax breaks far less valuable, and Hanoi knows it. Future support will depend on significant technology transfer and value creation, making it harder for low value assembly projects to pick up incentives.

Read more: Vietnam News

Hanoi Takes Nuclear Wish List to Kazan

Prime Minister Le Minh Hung used his first meeting with Vladimir Putin to push a more ambitious economic agenda with a $15 billion bilateral trade target and another attempt to revive the long delayed Ninh Thuan 1 Nuclear Power Plant. Trade between the two countries was $4.77 billion in 2025, so the new target would roughly triple current levels. The nuclear project got another agreed roadmap, but still no timeline. Hung also asked Russia to ease restrictions on Vietnamese seafood, garments, and footwear under the Vietnam-EAEU free trade agreement.

Read more: VnEconomy (cultural centers, railways), VnExpress (FTA renegotiation), VnEconomy (five priority areas)

Chips are Shipping

High-tech products made up for more than half of Vietnam's exports in Q1 2026 for the first time, a big deal, following years of foreign investment. AMC Robotics is adding to the performance, investing $3.5 million in a new 6,150 square meter factory in Bac Ninh to produce its NovaArm robotic arm from 2H 2026. Bac Ninh has become one of Southeast Asia's biggest manufacturing hubs, in part due to Samsung's largest factory complex (worldwide) being there.

Read more: Vietnam Insider (VNG revenue), The AI Insider (NovaArm production), Investing.com (AMCI market cap)

Jets and Giant Ships

The US Export-Import Bank will finance Vietnam Airlines' $2.9 billion purchase of 50 Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. Deliveries are scheduled for between 2030 and 2032. The financing is noteworthy because Washington is backing one of Boeing's biggest aircraft sales in Southeast Asia. Separately, the 399 meter MATZ MAERSK, carrying about 18,270 containers, became one of the largest ships ever to dock at a Vietnamese port. For northern exporters, it means cargo will be able to head straight to global markets instead of stopping at transshipment hubs first.

Read more: AeroTime (Ex-Im financing), VnEconomy (HHIT throughput)

Tourism Gets Fresh Money

Vinpearl has raised $255 million from SeaTown Holdings, the Oman Investment Authority, and the Vietnam Oman Investment Fund by way of convertible preference shares. The investment comes as international interest in Vietnam tourism continues to grow, (accommodation searches were up almost 50 percent through 2025). Searches from France more than tripled and the Philippines became Agoda's sixth largest source market. Vinpearl runs more than 17,500 five-star hotel rooms, 16 VinWonders theme parks, and six golf courses nationwide.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (SeaTown), Hospitality Net (source markets)

Confidence Bounces Back

Business confidence in Vietnam has almost doubled over the past year, and now 85 percent of companies are expecting a stronger performance y-o-y for 2026, according to UOB. More than nine in ten expect better revenue through 2028. Four in five are diversifying suppliers, almost two-thirds see ASEAN as their preferred overseas growth market, and a similar share plans to increase AI spending by more than 25 percent. Nearly half, however, still say tariffs and geopolitical tensions are driving up costs.

Read more: Vietnam News

Too Little Lychee

Luc Ngan's famous lychee harvest is expected to be about half the size of last year's after poor flowering and pollination weather. Buyers who once purchased fruit directly from orchards are now chasing supplies at roadside collection points as prices increase and quality becomes harder to judge. Traders are also saying that the fruit's high sugar content means it dries out quickly in the sun, leaving very little time to get it from the orchard onto trucks.

Read more: VnExpress

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To Lam Wants 10% Growth and Half the Provinces

An April 2026 National Assembly resolution sets a 10 percent yearly GDP growth target for 2030, in what’s a pretty big ask for an economy that is already $514 billion after posting 8 percent in 2025. To Lam is moving quickly as 63 provinces are being reduced into 34, almost 700 district units are gone, and the number of communes is being reduced from more than 10,590 to 2,321. The Ministry of Finance now controls roughly 70 percent of central government staff and nearly one-fifth of the National Assembly’s legislative workload. The government also wants to cut the Incremental Capital-Output Ratio from 6.4 to 4.5 while shedding about 20ish% of public sector jobs.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (US Treasury), Vietnam Investment Review (Finance Ministry), East Asia Forum (2045 target)

The $300 Billion Pitch

The Politburo's Resolution 10 sets a target of $200 to $300 billion in newly registered FDI by 2030, with three-quarters of the total expected to come from developed economies and sectors that have been under the spotlight like semiconductors, AI, big data, and biotech. A draft decree from the Ministry of Science and Technology proposes full land rent waivers for the entire lease term for “strategic” technology R&D centers. Ho Chi Minh City is offering monthly packages up to $4,600 for leadership roles in public science and technology organizations. The Intel backstory helps explains why the move is getting such a push. Hanoi lost a $3.3 billion Intel chip facility in 2023 after budget law blocked cash support to private firms, but two years later, after Intel abandoned alternative plans in Europe, it returned with $2.6 billion in new investment through the new Investment Support Fund.

Read more: Vietnam Insiders (FDI targets), VnEconomy (land rent), VnEconomy (Da Nang pay), VnEconomy (HCMC pay), TechNode Global (Intel)

Troops Sent to Finish the Airport

The army’s engineering arm, Truong Son Construction Corporation, sent hundreds of soldiers to Long Thanh International Airport in Dong Nai to work shifts because civilian contractors are short 7,000 laborers. Construction Minister Tran Hong Minh confirmed the deployment during an inspection when an Airports representative told him the project was about three-quarters complete and there was no room for further delays. The crunch is partly self-inflicted because the nearby Bien Hoa-Vung Tau expressway and the Ho Chi Minh City-Long Thanh-Dau Giay expansion are pulling from the same pool of engineers and machine operators. Contractors are now working round the clock with the help of three shifts and four rotating crews as part of a 180-day push. Trial operations are expected to be able to being in September and commercial flights may begin toward the end of this year. The original opening was supposed to be sometime in 2025.

Read more: VnExpress

China Eyes Vietnam’s Metro Boom

China Pacific Construction Group signed an MoU with Ho Chi Minh City's Department of Construction, the latest firm to get involved in the space built with Japanese money and then walked away from. Line 1, the nearly 20km Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien route that was built with Japanese loans money, took almost two decades to plan and 12 years to build before opening in December 2024. The city now wants 200km of urban rail done by 2030. CPCG, a Fortune 500 construction group, has already won three Hanoi contracts that broke ground this year, the Tu Lien and Ngoc Hoi bridges and Metro Line 5. Guangzhou Metro Group, which runs more than 1,500km of metro carrying almost 10 million riders a day, opened a Ho Chi Minh City office and is now working on Line 2's design and a feasibility study for Line 4.

Read more: VnExpress

EV Push Gets Real

Hanoi's People's Council passed a resolution which gives poor households up to VND20 million ($760) per person to replace their smoke-belching motorbikes with electric ones. The subsidy is a one-time deal per person, applies to a single motorbike or moped, will be paid out by commune-level committees via bank transfer, and runs through the end of 2027. As well as providing the cash, the city will make bus fares free within Ring Road 1 through 2027, with free rides citywide on buses and urban rail extended through 2030 for Tet, national holidays, and "special socio-political events." The city is encouraging EV adoption at the same time that operators are expanding their fleets - VinFast-linked Green SM signed on to help operator Huy Long roll out a 2,000-EV fleet for Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and a handful of “central provinces.”

Read more: VnEconomy (subsidies), Electrive (VinFast)

Vietnam Devours Thailand's Lunch

Twenty-one million tourists visited Vietnam in 2025, a one-fifth jump from the year earlier, and the country has now overtaken Thailand for Chinese travelers, pulling in 5.3 million vs Thailand's 4.5 million. Hanoi is expecting $41 billion in tourism revenue this year and working hard to bring higher-spending visitors as visa-free access now applies to visitors from 39 countries. The latest pitch is pointed at medical and conference travelers instead of the well-worm traditional backpacker market. The health ministry expects medical tourism to grow from $700 million in 2024 to close to $4 billion by 2033. Domestic tourism is picking up too, and a five-day National Day holiday is expected to push another wave toward Da Nang, Phu Quoc, and Ha Long Bay.

Read more: Fortune (airports), Vietnam Insiders (holiday travel)

Compensation for Flight Delays

Decree 208/2026, issued June 15 and taking effect July 1, defines what carriers will owe passengers when their flights are delayed. After two hours, airlines will need to pony up drinking water or a voucher for some, plus arrange a rebooking for anyone who asks. After three hours, they are on the hook for a meal. After four hours, if the airline is at fault and the passenger declines a rebooking, they owe a full refund of the unused fare, in addition to separate advance compensation also owed to ticketed passengers. If the delay gets as long as six hours, a rest area during the day and overnight lodging is provided if the wait extends beyond 10 p.m. The decree also reaches onto the tarmac. If a plane sits with doors closed and no confirmed departure for more than three hours, passengers must be let off.

Read more: VnExpress

Lumber Finds New Buyers in Beijing

Wood product exports hit $7.12 billion in the first five months of 2026, up a little on the year, but the interesting bit is where the goods are now going. The US is still the biggest market (still takes about half of all exports), but demand has softened a little as China is picking up the slack. The EU is only about 5 percent of the buy, but is tightening environmental traceability rules.

Read more: VnEconomy

The Party Runs Till the Wee Hours

The Hanoi People's Council has approved a tiered night-economy framework that, in select zones, will let businesses operate until 6am (Thailand: paying attention?). The scheduling runs in three bands, with 6pm to 10pm for most venues, 10pm to 2am for approved commercial and cultural areas, and 10pm to 6am for a narrow set of locations that can clear the requirements for infrastructure, public security, and noise control. Licenses are required for everyone across the board.

Read more: VnEconomy

Partners in Everything But Pay

Vietnam's roughly 600,000 ride-hailing and delivery drivers are still classified as "partners," not employees, more than a decade after Grab arrived in 2014. The classification spares the platforms any obligation for social, health, or unemployment insurance. The market grew from $200 million in 2015 to $1.6 billion in 2020, but a 2021 survey found motorbike drivers make only VND7-9 million ($266-342) a month after expenses, often after working up to 13 hours a day. Almost a quarter working the 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. shift. Courts have already suggested the "partner" label shouldn’t hold. Judges in the Grab-Vinasun litigation, which ran from 2018 to 2020, found that Grab set fares, assigned rides to drivers, and reduced driver pay in response to customer complaints. The 2019 Labor Code says an arrangement counts as employment when work is performed under management, direction, and supervision, regardless of what the contract calls it.

Read more: VnExpress

Vietnam’s Bullying Problem

Vietnam's Ministry of Education told students to "absolutely not film, photograph, or share clips of school violence on social media." The backlash was vociferous, and immediate. A 2023 survey of 1,700 students in seven provinces found nearly 70 percent had seen or experienced bullying, verbal abuse, or social exclusion, and more than 60 percent said they didn't know who to turn to if / when it happened. Two weeks before the order was issued, a 14-year-old in Lam Dong province attempted suicide after being beaten and extorted by 13 classmates. He suffered spinal injuries in the attack. His teachers, allegedly, knew nothing. Between 2017 and 2022, authorities recorded 2,624 incidents of school violence involving more than 7,200 students. Critics said the new directive is "a bandage tied tightly over a festering wound."

Read more: UCA News

Tenth Grader Exposes National Security Flaw

A 16-year-old with no formal training broke into the Ministry of Health's National Immunization Information System, pulled 20 million personal records, and sold them through private online groups before Lam Dong Province police traced the trail back to his bedroom in Nghe An. He reportedly taught himself programming online, wrote his own software to take advantage of a security flaw, and walked away with a little more than VND 100 million (~$4,000), for the country's vaccination registry. Police have opened a criminal case.

Read more: VnExpress

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Hanoi Buys Indian Missiles, Pours Concrete in the Spratlys

Indian Defense Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh confirmed at the Shangri-La Dialogue on May 30 that Hanoi has agreed to buy the BrahMos cruise missile, making it the second foreign buyer after the Philippines. The shore-based version travels at nearly three times the speed of sound and has a range of almost 300 km (about 180 miles), enough to give pause to any naval commander operating near the Vietnamese coast. The confirmation arrived in the same week that satellite imagery analyzed by Radio Free Asia showed Vietnamese construction underway at 27 spots on at least 18 reefs in the Spratlys, with ports, runways, military facilities, and communications arrays going up across the chain. China is Hanoi's number one trading partner, and the two governments have spent recent years talking up warmer ties. Beijing seized the Paracel Islands from South Vietnam in 1974 after a bloody battle and has pushed its claims in the South China Sea ever since.

Read more: Newsweek (Philippines comparison), Eurasia Review (acreage reclaimed)

Hanoi's Wish List Lands on Washington's Desk

Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Tuc gave US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau a pretty specific shopping list during talks in Hanoi on June 10, asking Washington to drop Vietnam from its D1 and D3 export control lists, recognize its market economy status, and pushed for the close of a reciprocal trade deal. Landau, in town for the ASEAN Future Forum 2026, offered the standard warm verbiage about a "strong, independent, resilient and prosperous" partner, and mentioned American interest in critical minerals, aviation, energy and defense alongside trade. Defense Minister Phan Van Giang, who also met Landau, said bilateral defense ties were one of the "most effective and practical" areas of engagement. What Hanoi got back was mostly affirmation that Trump "highly appreciated" To Lam's February trip to Washington.

Read more: VietnamNet

Foxconn Wants Its Watts Green AND Guaranteed

Foxconn and Brookfield Asset Management released a plan on June 9 to build up to 1 gigawatt of utility-scale wind, solar, and battery capacity to power Foxconn's Vietnam factories and supplier network, underpinned by a long-term power purchase agreement and funded through Brookfield's Catalytic Transition Fund. Before war in the Middle East upended energy supply lines, Vietnam was buying nearly four-fifths of its oil from Kuwait, a dependency that has been surely been focusing minds in both Hanoi and Taipei. Foxconn chief investment officer James Tu said the deal was a good way to get "stable and cost-effective power" for the company's regional growth more than it was a green-washing exercise. The buildout will come as Vietnam's direct PPA framework continues to evolve. The National Assembly is at this moment rewriting it to try and better court foreign investors. Brookfield manages more than $1 trillion in assets and runs one of the world's largest renewable energy portfolios of hydro, wind, solar, and storage on five continents.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (Daniel Cheng), Vietnam News (Vietnam legislative efforts), Semafor (Kuwait oil dependency), Focustaiwan TW (James Tu), Asian Power (direct PPA framework)

LG Innotek Bets Big on Hai Phong Substrates

LG Innotek signed an MoU with Hai Phong on June 4 to build its first semiconductor substrate plant outside South Korea in what will be a 330,000 sqm facility. Construction starts next month, completion is expected by May 2027. The plant will produce RF-SiP, FC-CSP, and FC-BGA substrates, the advanced packaging components that sit between raw chip fabrication and finished devices, and that every AI server rack and 5G handset currently needs more of. The Gumi factory already running in Korea is running near full capacity. CEO Moon Hyuk-soo wants the packaging solutions unit raking in more than 3 trillion KRW by 2030.

Read more: Vietnam News (Gumi reinvestment), Vietnam Insiders (6G demand)

China Eats What Washington Won't

Vietnamese seafood shipments to China and Hong Kong rose 40.5% to $1.2 billion in the first five months of 2026, more than offsetting a 10% slide in US-bound exports to $689 million. Shrimp led the pack globally at $1.9 billion in all markets, which is about 40% of all seafood shipments. The industry is already raising the flag about raw material shortages and stricter Chinese food safety rules as reasons the second half may not keep up.

Read more: VnExpress

Gold Bugs Get Squashed

Retail investors who rode bullion to its peak are nursing losses of more than 27% since early March, with the Saigon Jewelry Company bar price settling at VND138.3 million per tael on Wednesday after a single-day drop of 3.82%. The local premium that once made Vietnamese gold a juicy arb play has collapsed to roughly VND4 million per tael, down from nearly VND12 million recently, as sellers cashed out over fears that new supply would push prices lower still. Precious metal and gemstone imports rose 284% year-on-year, the fastest growth of any major import category, and the Vietnam Gold Traders Association is lobbying for a 50-ton yearly tariff-free import quota, saying the ask is needed to support more jewelry exports.

Read more: VnExpress (Wednesday price drop), VnExpress (local-global premium), VnExpress (rate hike pressure), VnExpress (50-ton import quota)

A Single Stock to Rule Them All

The VN-Index saw an all-time high of 1,933 points in May, and nearly two-thirds of actively managed funds still couldn't keep up. Eighteen closed out the first five months in the red. The rally leaned heavily on Vingroup-connected names, even as the VN30, tracking the market's biggest stocks, fell 1.3% in May and is down 1.7% so far for the year. Dragon Capital's DCDS and DCDE both held VIC and VHM and still lost 6.5% and 6.1% respectively, dragged down partly by Mobile World, which fell more than 9% through the month of May. Even the year's top fund, VNDAF, watched its return shrink from 16.5% to 9.3% in a month after property developer NVL fell more than a quarter in May, after having rocketed 45% in April.

Read more: Vietnam Insiders

Vuong Sells a Million Cars to Himself

VinFast has signed a deal to supply Green SM, the ride-hailing company that is also controlled by Pham Nhat Vuong, with a million electric cars and four million e-motorbikes by 2030, according to its Q1 financials. VinFast showed a loss of more than VND28 trillion in Q1, up from VND17.7 trillion a year earlier, even as Green SM's charter capital has risen from VND3 trillion to VND43 trillion since its 2023 launch. Outside the empire, real customers are hard to come by, though VinFast did sell 58,600 electric cars in Q1, up 61% year-on-year. 8% of the total went to overseas markets.

Read more: VnExpress (Green SM expansion), TechNode Global (charging infrastructure)

Bangkok and Hanoi Pencil In $50 Billion

Thailand and Vietnam set a bilateral trade goal of $50 billion, with a nearer-term waypoint of $25 billion, after Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul's June 8 talks in Hanoi on the sidelines of the ASEAN Future Forum. The two are currently in the middle of celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations, and in May they upgraded their relationship to a Complete Strategic Partnership. The bi-national talks included much more than just trade, taking in defense exchanges, joint maritime patrols, a shared "Two Countries, One Destination" tourism pitch, and invitations to Thai defense firms for December's Vietnam International Defense Expo in Hanoi.

Read more: Aa Com TR (summit), Travel and Tour World (tourism visitor counts), VnExpress (defense expo invite), VnEconomy (three connectivity strategy)

Hanoi Stops Promising Workers a Deed

In a noteworthy shift of messaging, Vietnam is retiring the dream of mass homeownership for its workers. At the 14th Vietnam Trade Union Congress on June 5, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh changed the goal from “owning a home” to having "the right to housing." He mentioned long-term affordable rentals near industrial zones as part of his pitch. Housing prices may have made the change inevitable, because costs in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City now run 20 to 30 times average annual income. That’s compared to what’s considered healthy elsewhere of of 5 to 7 time. More than 70 percent of Hanoi's 2.7 million workers already live in rented boarding houses. The Vietnam General Confederation of Labor says it’s on track to deliver about 10,700 social housing units by 2030, with 1,722 apartments already under construction in Bac Ninh and the former Ben Tre (now Vinh Long), expected to be finished sometime next year.

Read more: VnEconomy (PM rental commitment), VnEconomy (VGCL timeline), VnEconomy (National Housing Corporation)

Towers Down, Trees Up on the Saigon River

Ho Chi Minh City has put the kibosh on a 2016 plan for more than 3,100 riverfront apartments at the Nha Rong-Khanh Hoi site and broke ground April 29 on a 39.5-hectare public park instead. Sun Group is building it under a build-transfer contract worth VND20 trillion ($760 million), with no state budget money involved. The reversal is remarkable partly because the city currently offers residents about 0.7 sq.m of public park space per person, against its own stated livability benchmark of 8 to 10 (for comparison, Bangkok (no green paradise) manages 3.3). The Nha Rong site is a few hundred meters from the Nguyen Hue walking street, on one of the most coveted land banks in the city.

Read more: VnExpress

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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Horton International is your premier partner for executive search in Southeast Asia. Whether you're a small startup or a global corporation, our reliable and effective recruiting solutions are tailored to meet your unique needs. With extensive experience and offices across the region, we excel at overcoming recruitment challenges and securing top talent for your organization.

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The Memo is published weekdays - Cambodia (every Monday), Myanmar (Tuesday), Laos (Wednesday), Vietnam (Thursday) and Thailand (Friday). The Thailand edition is free in its entirety; the others usually abbreviated for non-paid subscribers.

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Washington Opens a New File on Hanoi

Vietnam's May trade deficit got to $5.21 billion, the biggest number since December 1996 and a mile further than Bloomberg's $3.98 billion median forecast. Imports were $52.14 billion (+33.8%), as manufacturers stockpiled semiconductors and energy ahead of what looks like might be a rough second half. The first five months of 2026 have flipped a $5.1 billion surplus into a $13.8 billion deficit y-o-y. It’s not a great time - USTR Jamieson Greer announced a Section 301 investigation into Vietnam's IP protection and enforcement on May 29, after the country got slapped with a “priority foreign country” designation in the April 30 Special 301 Report. The January-May trade surplus with the US was up more than a fifth to $60.4 billion. A determination is expected by the end of November (a three-month extension is possible). This is the third Section 301 action against Vietnam in of late, after the 2020 currency and timber probes. Both of those were resolved through bilateral agreements instead of tariffs.

Read more: Yahoo Finance (export miss), TradingView (May surplus reversal), Woodworkingnetwork (IP enforcement scope), Furnituretoday (tariff risk, timeline)

Hanoi Buys Spares for Planes It Doesn't Have

The US State Department approved a $100 million foreign military sale to Vietnam for sustainment support for the C-130 Hercules, an aircraft Hanoi does not fly. The package includes engine propellers, aircraft components, ground handling equipment, spare parts, and repair-and-return support, in addition to training aids and contractor logistics services. Washington's official reasoning is that the sale supports US foreign policy and national-security objectives by updating the air and transport capabilities of an Indo-Pacific partner. RTX is named as contractor, which indicates a likelihood of secondhand C-130s, not newly-built aircraft. Ordering sustainment infrastructure before aircraft arrive is not entirely unusual in the procurement game, however. The last major US-Vietnam defense milestone was Hanoi's elevation to Complete Strategic Partner status in 2023, and the arms relationship has been improving steadily since.

Read more: Aviationweek (future acquisition hint), TradingView (regional balance), Militaryembedded (full package breakdown), Flightglobal (RTX secondhand)

Hanoi Takes the Mic, Beijing Sends a Major General

To Lam opened the 23rd Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on May 29, the first time Vietnam's top leader has given the keynote at Asia's top security forum. The speech hit some familiar notes for anyone who’s been watching Hanoi's diplomatic evolution. Competition between states is real, To Lam said, but must be "bounded by law, guided by transparency, and exercised with restraint," with ASEAN at the center of whatever regional architecture comes into play. He mentioned the sea specifically and reaffirmed the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea as his preferred basis for resolving disputes in what Hanoi calls the East Sea. China's defense minister Dong Jun skipped the forum for the second year in a row, so Beijing was represented by Major General Meng Xiangqing of the PLA's National Defence University.

Read more: CNBC (responsible commitment), Vietnam Insiders (diplomatic exit ramps), VnEconomy (To Lam recommendations)

To Lam's Three-Capital Shuffle

Bangkok, Singapore, and Manila over four days, and the deliverables from To Lam's Southeast Asia swing can be tallied. A CP-FPT MoU signed in Bangkok on May 28 puts AI and smart-farm tech across C.P. Vietnam's Feed-Farm-Food chain, and is expected to result in full product traceability and operational cost cuts of 20 percent. In Singapore, the talk was on increasing the number of Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Parks to 30 this year, three decades after the first one opened. Two-way trade with SG was nearly $12 billion in 2025. In Manila, Hanoi and the Philippines upgraded to an “Enhanced Strategic Partnership,” set a $10 billion trade target, and signed a defense MoU on maritime security and disaster response.

Read more: VnEconomy (CP-FPT MoU), VnEconomy (Singapore $100B FDI), VnEconomy (Philippines trade sectors), VnExpress (four agreements signed)

Six-Year Price High, Targets Slipping

Annual CPI was a warm 5.6% in May, the highest reading since January 2020, with transport costs up about 12.5% year-on-year as Middle East conflict keeps fuel prices up and hot weather edges electricity demand higher. At a June 3 cabinet meeting reviewing the first five months of ‘26, PM Pham Minh Chinh confirmed what anyone watching the data already suspected: industrial production, agriculture, trade, and services are all running below target in a few important areas. He asked ministries to find the root causes and propose better policy remediation. Core inflation held at 4.67% in May, the highest rate since March 2023. Deputy Prime Ministers are now expected to work directly with ministries, localities and sectors to unblock bottlenecks, and particular attention is expected for industry, agriculture, and other sectors that are showing signs of slowing growth or even (gasp!) decline.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (AMRO forecast), TradingView (CPI breakdown), Nikkei Asia (trade deficit), VnEconomy (cabinet response)

A Doi Moi Rewrite at 40

At a national scientific conference in Hai Phong on May 26, policymakers, economists, and business leaders chewed the fat on at topic that Hanoi’s been circling for years but rarely said outright, which is that the 40-year-old Doi Moi growth model has run its course. Growth is still far too reliant on investment capital and cheap labor, productivity and innovation lag, and the social governance system is missing the data interoperability needed to run anything in real time (which seems like table stakes in 2026). The framework on offer borrows from the developmental state playbook that Japan and South Korea ran during their industrial ascensions, reoriented around science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation, using data and algorithms as the new growth drivers. The 2045 target, when Vietnam wants to realize its ambitions as a high-income country, is what's concentrating minds. The way that institutional machinery might be able to deliver on the pivot is the bit which the conference papers left for later.

Read more: VnEconomy (middle-income trap), VnEconomy (governance components)

Twenty Years' Salary for a Flat, or Rent

Hanoi apartment prices have gone up a dizzying 72% in the last five years, but annual wage growth has only tipped 6-10% and the gap seems like it’s going to keep widening. The result is that residential prices are now about 20 times the average annual household income. The result is a sorting of young buyers into three camps. Some are saving grimly and waiting, some are retreating to satellite cities where prices have more give, and others have dropped homeownership as a near-term goal altogether. The PM says a supply shortage is "the primary bottleneck."

Read more: VnEconomy (Gen Z survey), Asian News Network (rent-to-own demand), VnEconomy (PM directive timeline)

Hanoi Puts a Price on the Old Quarter

Starting January 2028, drivers who want to get into the historic core around Hoan Kiem and Ba Dinh will need to pay a toll. The fee zone will expand ring by ring out to Ring Road 2 by 2030 and Ring Road 3 by 2032. The city has 8.1 million registered vehicles (7 million are motorbikes/ ~95% running on gasoline), plus another 1.2 million rolling in daily from the provinces. A low-emission zone inside Ring Road 1 is going to be implemented first, next month, and will limit gasoline motorbikes by time and area.

Read more: VnExpress

Seoul Pitches Reactors but Moscow’s Banked a Deal

Korean President Lee Jae Myung flew to Hanoi last month to try and flog Korean reactor technology. He stood beside PM Pham Minh Chinh and pointed to Czechia, Poland, and the UAE as proof of concept. The problem is that Rosatom locked in Ninh Thuan 1 in March, when Moscow and Hanoi formalized the deal as a sign of their countries' friendship. What's left on the table is Ninh Thuan 2, and Korea is going into that fight trailing on the metrics Hanoi wants to use (state financing, guaranteed fuel supply, and a partner willing to move on Hanoi's timeline). By 2050, Vietnam wants nuclear to cover 6 to 8 percent of its grid needs by way of using up to four large reactors and fifteen small modular reactors.

Read more: Keia

Tiki Who? TikTok Shop Turns VN Into a Two-Horse Race

Vietnam's four biggest e-commerce platforms reported a combined $13.6 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) between May 2025 and April 2026 (+37% yoy). Almost none of that growth went to anyone outside the top two. TikTok Shop's GMV was up 83% to $5.96 billion and increased its share to 44% from 33%. Shopee was still the frontrunner with $7.29 billion in sales, but its share slid from 61% to 53%. Lazada, the Alibaba property that was once a serious contender, saw its share slashed in half to 3% on $385 million in sales. The biggest tailwind in TikTok's climb is "shoppertainment," the livestream-plus-short-video format that has brands redirecting ad budgets toward influencers who flog everything from diapers and dairy in real time. Tiki, the homegrown pioneer, wrangled $5 million in GMV, down 82% yoy.

Read more: The Investor

Nine Thousand Needed, Twenty-Five Hundred Short

Long Thanh is 76% complete and has burned through VND65.6 trillion ($2.5 billion) in contracted work, but it's still short 2,500 workers. The passenger terminal (which is the most complicated piece), is at almost two-thirds done - imported equipment remains covered and waiting for crews that haven't shown up yet. Competing infrastructure projects in Dong Nai are pulling from the same labor pool, and several contractors have started to slow progress as a result. Everyone’ waiting on price-adjustment policies that don't exist yet for fixed-price contracts that have been squeezed by rising costs. ACV is still expected (hoped?) to begin trial operations in September, the first of three testing phases before a December commercial opening.

Read more: VnExpress (labor shortfall), VnExpress (180-day campaign)

That's all for this week, thanks for reading. Your voice matters to us. Feel we're missing something? Have additional sources to suggest? Don't hold back- hit reply and tell us what you think.

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