News from Southeast Asia directly to your inbox every weekday.
The Mekong Memo is proudly presented by:
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.
Click here to learn how Horton can make your life easier.
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.
Headlines:
The Conglomerate King Joins the $60 Billion Club
Tokyo Brings Its Own Checkbook to Hanoi
Seoul's Hanoi Haul: Won, Dong, and a Reactor Deal
Maersk Plants a Flag in Da Nang
Two Vietnams, One GDP Number
Bond Market's Back, Same Four Names
Keppel Drags Thu Thiem Partners to Singapore
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Finally Pour Some Concrete
Old Quarter Goes Quiet on Weekends
Manhattan Comes at a Price
The Conglomerate King Joins the $60 Billion Club
Vingroup got to a $60 billion market cap this week, the first Vietnamese company to crack Southeast Asia's top four, behind Singapore's DBS ($126.5B), Thailand's Delta Electronics ($100B), and Singapore's OCBC ($76B). The conglomerate that Pham Nhat Vuong started in Ukraine in 1993 is now worth more than any of Kia, Nintendo, and Panasonic. Profits are up 150% on revenues of VND104.3 trillion, property contributing VND60.2 trillion, and VinFast another VND28 trillion. The EV unit delivered 58,600 cars in the quarter, up 61%, as well as 143,000 motorbikes, three times what it did a year ago. Vuong's personal fortune is now estimated to be $34.9 billion, a 23% bump since the end of last year. Vingroup shares are up roughly 29% year-to-date in 2026 after rising more than seven-fold in 2025.
Read more: VnExpress (Vuong net worth), VnExpress (regional ranking), VnExpress (Q1 revenue breakdown)
Tokyo Brings Its Own Checkbook to Hanoi
Sanae Takaichi, Japan's first female prime minister, lands in Hanoi tomorrow for her first visit since taking office in October. Japan has 5,722 active investment projects in Vietnam worth $78.9 billion, bilateral trade was $51.43 billion in 2025 (should be ~$60 billion by 2027), and Q1 trade is running 12.7% ahead of last year. The agenda is energy, critical minerals, and semiconductor talent. Running alongside the visit, Nishi-Nippon Railroad has changed the way it works from deal-by-deal collaboration with Nam Long ADC into a formal joint venture, taking a 49% stake to help build housing. Takaichi is scheduled to meet President To Lam and PM Pham Minh Chinh on Saturday.
Read more: Kyodo News (Australia leg), VnExpress (JV for housing), VnExpress (semiconductor talent), VnEconomy (ambassador commitment)
Seoul's Hanoi Haul: Won, Dong, and a Reactor Deal
Korean President Lee Jae Myung finished his Hanoi visit on April 24 with three deliverables built on groundwork that had been previously set during To Lam's trip to Seoul last August. The most immediately visible is a live cross-border QR payment system that hooks Korean apps into Vietnam's VietQR Global network, allowing for direct won-to-dong payments. Longer in the making is a four-party MOU on nuclear energy, putting Korea Eximbank, Korea Trade Insurance Corporation, KEPCO, and Petrovietnam under the same financing setup. Eximbank chairman Hwang Ki-yeon says it’s "an important starting point for Korean companies to build a strong presence" in the sector. The central bank of Vietnam has licensed Industrial Bank of Korea to set up a wholly foreign-owned subsidiary in the first new bank approval, foreign or domestic, since 2008. IBK is now the third Korean lender with full local incorporation after Shinhan and Woori.
Read more: VnEconomy (73 MOUs signed), VnEconomy (QR merchant scale), Solarquarter (Petrovietnam chairman), Fintech Global (GLN app list), VnEconomy (Banking)
Maersk Plants a Flag in Da Nang
On April 25, a Hateco-APM Terminals joint venture broke ground on the Lien Chieu Container Terminal in Da Nang, a $2 billion-or-so project that will add 5.7 million TEU of yearly capacity to a coastline that punches well below its weight. Eight berths will eventually be able to handle vessels up to 18,000 TEU. Maersk CEO Vincent Clerc flew in for the ceremony and started the clock, promising the first vessels in 30 months. He also dangled a comparison to Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia, where Maersk runs port operations that are integrated with a free trade zone, a model that Da Nang has on paper, even if the finer details for its own FTZ are still being worked out. The state has promised nearly VND 3.5 trillion in public money for shared infrastructure, including a national railway connection that’s still being designed.
Read more: VnEconomy (green port tech), VnExpress (cargo tonnage), VnEconomy (To Lam targets), VnEconomy (FTZ framework)
Two Vietnams, One GDP Number
Q1 growth results are in at 7.83 percent, the best opening quarter in years, and Hanoi has every reason to celebrate. Foreign-invested factories were responsible for more than four-fifths of the total and posted $98.46 billion in exports. Domestic firms managed only $24.47 billion, which is a figure that’s actually down 16.6 percent - so the foreign firms are doing the heavy lifting, for sure. Despite the solid overall numbers, reports are coming that the SMEs that employ more than 80 percent of the workforce and generate close to half of GDP are getting antsy about cash - only 20 to 25 percent say they are currently able to get a bank loan. Core inflation was reported to be 3.96 percent year-on-year through March.
Read more: Vietnam News (SME credit access), VnEconomy (Q1 GDP breakdown)
Bond Market's Back, Same Four Names
Vietnam's private corporate bond market raised VND46.74 trillion ($1.77 billion) in the first four months of 2026, as compared to VND30.07 trillion a year earlier. Real estate companies claimed four-fifths of the cash. Four conglomerates took nearly all of it: Masterise-linked entities (VND13.6 trillion), Vingroup (VND10.5 trillion), Sovico (VND10.2 trillion), and Sun Group (VND3.1 trillion). Sovico's haul came almost entirely from a single 10-year tranche by Marina Center Investment, backed by the Marina Central Tower project in Ho Chi Minh City with a 4% coupon. Vinhomes priced two tranches totaling VND7.5 trillion at coupons of 12% to 12.5%. Banks, which commanded more than two-thirds of issuance in early 2024, have continued making a move toward public offerings, leaving the private market to property issuers.
Read more: The Investor
Keppel Drags Thu Thiem Partners to Singapore
Keppel has dragged its three Vietnamese partners into arbitration at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre, trying to pin the full $261 million in surprise land use fees from the long-frozen Empire City project on Denver Power, Tien Phuoc Real Estate, and Tran Thai Lands. The fees, handed out by HCMC authorities, have since snowballed. Empire City LLC now has $264.69 million in tax liabilities, penalties, and late fees; $62.56 million is more than 90 days overdue. Construction started in 2017 and was able to deliver about 1,200 apartments before stalling in 2019.
Read more: The Investor
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City Finally Pour Some Concrete
Three infrastructure milestones have arrived in the same news cycle, and for once they're groundbreakings, not feasibility studies. Ho Chi Minh City broke ground April 29 on a $1.4 billion metro line that will dig under the Saigon River, connecting Ben Thanh market to Thu Thiem on driverless trains, with the full Tham Luong-Ben Thanh-Thu Thiem axis of Line 2 expected (hoped for?) by 2030. The same day, nearly 200km of North-South Expressway opened from Quang Ngai toward the Cu Mong Tunnel, after a VND21.1 trillion ($802 million) build that started at the beginning of 2023. In the north, bulldozers cleared Lane 310 on Nghi Tam Street last week as Hanoi pushes land clearance for the $760 million Tu Lien Bridge to cross the Red River. Completion of that project is expected next year.
Read more: Vietnam News (resident displacement), VnExpress (station names, GoA4), VnEconomy (opening time, speed limit)
Old Quarter Goes Quiet on Weekends
Starting July 1, Hanoi will bar gasoline-powered motorbikes from 11 streets in the Old Quarter on Friday evenings and through the weekend, the first move in a three-phase plan that is expected to eventually cover the entire Ring Road 1 area by end-2029. That’s an area of roughly 26 square kilometers which is home to about 625,000 people. Phase 1 restrictions run Friday 6 p.m. to midnight and Saturday and Sunday 6 a.m. to midnight, with ride-hailing platforms explicitly included, not just private bikes. Transport makes up 59 percent of the city's direct emissions. Light trucks under two tons need Euro 4 certification to operate outside peak hours, and anything more than 3.5 tons is banned outright. Phase 2 will expand the plan into Cua Nam ward next January, adding 14 streets.
Read more: VnExpress (PM2.5 sources), VnEconomy (nine affected wards)
Manhattan Comes at a Price
Vietnamese state media reported on March 26 that all households in Ho Chi Minh City's Thu Thiem New Urban Area had "agreed to move." Videos circulating on social media told a different story, with police sealing streets for days, water and electricity cut off, internet disabled, and residents livestreaming evictions before the feeds went dark. Nearly 15,000 households have been cleared from the 657-hectare peninsula across the Saigon River from District 1, billed as the "Manhattan of Vietnam" which is being designed to eventually house up to 145,000 residents and absorb a million visitors at peak events. Several religious and historic structures have already been taken down, roughly 5,000 households remain.
Read more: Asia Sentinel
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.
If you value the Mekong Memo, please consider buying (or gifting!) a paid subscription, sharing it on social media or forwarding this email to someone who might enjoy it. Please also “like” this newsletter by clicking the ❤️ below (or sometimes above, depending on the platform), which helps us get visibility on the Substack network.