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Headlines:
One Man, Two Thrones
Central Banker Gets the Keys (and a 10% Growth Target)
Saigon Bulls Make the Cut
Seven Point Eight Three
Half a Day's Pay at the Pump
Priced Out, Bused Free
Gold Up 800%, Borrower Still Broke
Southeast Asia's Richest Man Won by Staying Put
Build the Island, Then Build More Island
Scan Here, Pay There
One Man, Two Thrones
The National Assembly voted unanimously (495 to zero!) on Tuesday to elect To Lam as state president for the next five years, making the Communist Party general secretary the first leader to hold both jobs at a party congress since Ho Chi Minh. It’s a break from the collective leadership model that has kept the country's top roles split since the 1980s and makes the power structure more similar to that of China. Lam briefly held both posts in 2024 after his predecessor died, but this time he has a full mandate to push the reform agenda he's been running since August. He told lawmakers his priority is double-digit growth driven by science and tech.
Read more: AP News (Q1 growth gap), The Diplomat (2024 precedent), VnExpress (reform numbers), Taipei Times (99% vote share), Yahoo (investor sentiment)
Central Banker Gets the Keys (and a 10% Growth Target)
Le Minh Hung took office as prime minister on April 7, the country's youngest since 1955 and the first central banker to hold the job in decades. The National Assembly's unanimous vote installed a technocrat with a clear brief that calls for an average annual GDP growth rate in excess of 10% through 2031. Hung previously spent four years running the State Bank, building foreign reserves and moving the entire banking sector toward digital services, but his tenure wasn't without blemish. The Van Thinh Phat fraud, one of the largest financial scandals in the country's history, grew on his watch. The credit-to-GDP ratio also went as high as 145% in 2025, triple that of comparable developing economies (Thailand’s is similar, however). The last time leadership pushed this hard for growth (2006-2011), it ended in an asset bubble, a banking crisis, and 23% inflation.
Read more: Vietnam Insiders (decentralization timeline), Fulcrum (energy shortage)
Saigon Bulls Make the Cut
FTSE Russell finally confirmed a long-expected reclassification of Vietnam’s bourse from frontier to Secondary Growing Market status, effective September 21. The VN-Index rose closed last night at 1,756, its highest level since early March, with trading volume of VND33.37 trillion, more than double the prior session and the strongest turnover in almost a month. Foreign investors still sold a net VND602 billion across all exchanges, but if you remove block put-throughs from your math, they were net buyers by roughly VND580 billion.
Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (MSCI criteria progress), Vietnam Investment Review, The Investor (inflation risks warning), VnExpress (Indonesia comparison context), MSN ($6B inflow estimate)
Seven Point Eight Three
The economy grew 7.83% in Q1, the fastest clip in 16 years, but the headline number obfuscates a growing divergence. Foreign-invested firms saw exports rise 33.3% to $98.46 billion at the same time that domestic companies dropped 16.6% to $24.47 billion. Foreign trade rose 23% to $249.5 billion, yet the country flipped from a $3.57 billion surplus a year ago to a $3.64 billion deficit as imports rose 27% while exports rose only 19.1%. FDI inflows totaled $15.2 billion, up almost 43%. On the ground, retail sales rose 10.9%, international arrivals came in at a record 6.76 million. Another notable divergence was the 57,400 new firms registered, measured against 91,800 that shuttered operations.
Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (FDI breakdown), VnExpress (macro context), VnExpress (domestic vs FDI), VnEconomy (retail details), VnEconomy (business churn)
Half a Day's Pay at the Pump
As is the story in much of Southeast Asia these days, Vietnamese diesel prices more than doubled and the price of gasoline rose roughly 30% through March, driving consumer inflation to a five-year March high of 4.65% year-on-year. The pain everywhere - gig workers spending half their earnings on fuel, rice millers in the Delta shutting down during peak electricity hours, and farmers skipping the May planting season rather than paying for fertilizer. To fight the challenges, Hanoi dropped environmental taxes on fuel to zero through mid-April, waived transport fees through June, and pushed the Dung Quat refinery to 110% of its normal output. Deputy Minister Nguyen Sinh Nhat Tan said the crisis is worse than the 1970s oil shocks in scale. A two-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire brought prices down slightly, but they’re still well above pre-conflict levels.
Read more: VnExpress (April supply secured), VnEconomy (VLCC mobilization plan), VnEconomy (March CPI breakdown), VnEconomy (June tax extension), New York Times (Rice mills shuttered)
Priced Out, Bused Free
HCMC apartment prices rose 11.8% in Q1 to an average VND97 million/ square meter. Supply below VND40 million has virtually evaporated even in formerly separate Binh Duong and Ba Ria-Vung Tau, which were folded into the city last July. Almost 90% of new units in central areas are high-end or luxury, and Knight Frank expects the squeeze to continue through 2027 as land scarcity and construction costs mean that upmarket developments are the best way for developers to make the numbers work. Rather than tackling housing costs directly, the city's response, announced Wednesday by Party chief Tran Luu Quang, is to make all 135 intra-city bus routes free. Planners are hopeful the subsidy will result in 30% ridership growth, though they're still figuring out whether the existing 2,100-vehicle fleet can handle the increase. The proposal still needs People's Council approval later this month.
Read more: VnExpress (Knight Frank projections), VnExpress (subsidy cost quintupling)
Gold Up 800%, Borrower Still Broke
A 218.74 kg gold loan worth VND100 billion when it was issued has ballooned to VND891 billion by the end of 2025, and borrower Saigon Aquatic Products Trading can't repay it. The seafood exporter owes VND2.79 trillion in total overdue debts to Sacombank (which absorbed the original lender, Southern Bank), with interest and penalties alone accounting for VND1.56 trillion. Accumulated losses stand at 30 times the company's charter capital. Sacombank sued for VND1.43 trillion in April 2022 and has been trying to auction the debt since, dropping the asking price to VND317 billion in late 2025 with no takers. Auditors are now questioning whether the company, which exports frozen fish, shrimp, and fish sauce to the U.S., EU, and Japan, will be able to continue operating.
Read more: VnExpress
Southeast Asia's Richest Man Won by Staying Put
Pham Nhat Vuong topped Forbes' Southeast Asia rich list at $15.9 billion, overtaking Indonesia's Prajogo Pangestu. Pangestu's fortune cratered after Indonesian authorities questioned stock market transparency, dropping from more than $44 billion to $18.6 billion. Vuong's wealth also slipped nearly $4 billion this year as Vingroup shares cooled, but his family still controls about 65% of the juggernaut. He became the country's first billionaire in 2013 at $1.5 billion, growing his fortune more than sixteen-fold over twelve years.
Read more: VnExpress
Build the Island, Then Build More Island
Kien Giang province wants to reclaim 4,500 hectares of sea off Phu Quoc and the Gulf of Thailand coast, creating four artificial island clusters starting in 2027 and running through 2050. The largest chunk, 2,300 hectares around Phu Quoc and Tho Chau, is planned to be an international entertainment zone with free trade facilities, luxury resorts, and amusement parks. The island already has more than 10,000 hotel rooms under construction; builders are racing to get them done by late 2027 for APEC hosting duties. Provincial officials told planners to start looking for investors now instead of wait for ground to break. Sun PhuQuoc Airways put an order in for “up to” 40 Boeing 787 Dreamliners in February that will be used to fly guests in.
Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (construction timeline), VnExpress (cluster breakdown), Yahoo Finance (aircraft order)
Scan Here, Pay There
Chinese tourists are now able to scan VIETQRGlobal codes with Alipay at merchants nationwide, settling directly in yuan or dong through a system connecting NAPAS, Ant International, and Vietcombank. The rollout allows for more than a billion Alipay users to use the retail payment network, and means that Vietnamese travelers will be able to pay via QR in China as well. China sent roughly 5.3 million visitors last year, the largest single source of inbound tourism, and the system is designed to keep that spending digital.
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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