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Two Million Barrels, Five Days, One Letter
The Agios Fanourios I, a Malta-flagged supertanker carrying about 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude, reversed course in the Gulf of Oman on May 11 after US Central Command redirected it as part of enforcement against Iran, then sat in position, waiting, for five days. PetroVietnam Oil told US authorities that any more delay would force a stop to operations at the Nghi Son refinery and cut fuel supply to consumers, businesses, and public services throughout Vietnam, and the move seems to have worked. The ship restarted its journey on May 16 and is expected at Nghi Son by May 30.
Read more: Vietnam Insiders (Hormuz shipping confidence), Marineinsight (departure timeline)
Nvidia's Second Home Gets the Good Stuff
Foxconn is becoming Nvidia's assembly partner in Vietnam for SXM modules, the chipmaker's top-tier data-center GPU platform that powers systems running large-scale AI workloads. A current job listing for an "SXM Manufacturing Test Engineer" specifies that the hire would spend most of their time at Foxconn factories, building and validating next-generation GPU boards. It's a step up from the consumer electronics work Vietnam is traditionally known for. Nvidia is recruiting for dozens of positions - factory planners to senior operations managers, with several requiring Chinese fluency in addition to English. The push follows on Jensen Huang's December 2024 trip to Hanoi, where he signed deals on an AI research center and data infrastructure and called Vietnam Nvidia's "second home." In February, Trump removed Vietnam from the export control list it had shared with China and Russia since the Cold War, clearing the legal path for this sort of transfer.
Read more: The Investor (job posting, headcounts), Lowy Institute (export control removal)
A $1.5 Trillion Bill and a Better Class of Foreigner
Vietnam's newly approved 2026-2030 socio-economic plan has Hanoi's ambitions get a price tag of VND38,500 trillion (a staggering $1.48 trillion), of which well more than a trillion of that will need to come from the private sector, investment funds, and foreign companies. The qualitative shift is probably more than the big number, however. A soon-to-be-released Politburo resolution will reposition FDI from its current role of “capital to be attracted” to an integral part of the domestic growth model. After nearly four decades of rolling out the welcome mat, only 15 percent of Vietnamese companies can supply goods or services to foreign-invested enterprises (compare with 40 percent in Thailand and almost half in Malaysia). The FDI sector is responsible for nearly three-quarters of total trade turnover and makes up almost a quarter of GDP. It’s a bit of a "transit pipeline" problem where components come in, assembly gets done, and profits get sent back out by way of dividends, royalties, and transfer pricing.
Read more: VnEconomy (Top 30 GDP target), VnEconomy (Politburo FII expansion), VnEconomy (Top 3 ASEAN timeline), VnEconomy (70 priority technologies), VnEconomy (42-indicator gaps)
Vietnam Writes the AI Rulebook
Vietnam has enacted a binding AI law, putting it among the first countries anywhere to set wide-ranging rules on the technology that will apply to generative tools from OpenAI, Anthropic, and the like. Companies will be required to classify their products by risk level and label AI-generated content, including deepfakes, before it gets to Vietnamese users. The authorities are going to get the power to enforce compliance.
Read more: Nikkei Asia
Hanoi Tears Itself Down to Rebuild Itself Up
A draft resolution published May 20 would ban private vehicles from central Hanoi streets starting January 1, 2035, a date that’s been chosen with a metro network that mostly doesn't exist in mind. The city hopes for plans 96.8 km of metro track by 2030 and wants to finish the full network by 2035. The motorbike restrictions will kick in once public transport can absorb displaced trips. Central Hanoi is already a construction site. The $606 million Tran Hung Dao bridge is clearing homes along Van Kiep Street, the $759 million Tu Lien bridge will reclaim nearly 294,000 square meters in Hong Ha Ward, and Ring Road 1 crews are racing to finish the roadbed before September 2. Things are on the move.
Read more: VnExpress (vehicle restrictions), VnExpress (bridge & road)
Seoul and Tokyo Bring Batteries to the Bike Fight
Hanoi signed an MOU with LG Energy Solution and Honda on May 19 to build out a battery-swapping network for electric motorbikes, starting with 50 pilot stations near Hoan Kiem ward in Q3 2026. The ambition is to scale to 1,000 stations citywide from Q3 2027. Honda, which owned nearly nine-tenths of Vietnam's motorcycle market in 2025, will provide the bikes and develop the battery packs/ swapping units; LG will provide its cylindrical 2170 batteries and run the safety management system. The pilot will put 500 electric motorcycles on the road. An LG representative called Vietnam "the most critical country in Southeast Asia for the transition to electric two-wheelers."
Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (2170 battery role), TechNode Global (vice chairman), VnEconomy (subsidy tiers)
862,000 Residents Shown the Door
Hanoi People's Committee Chairman Tran Sy Thanh signed off on a plan to move 862,000 residents out of the historic city core by 2045, with the first 442,000 to be pulled from Red River flood plains, West Lake and several inner-city streets between 2026 and 2035, and the remaining 420,000 from the Old Quarter and other areas inside Ring Road 3 over the decade following. The receiving zones, Dong Anh, Gia Lam and the Hoa Lac science and technology hub to the west, are being built up around metro stations, with the city aiming for at least 45 square meters of floor space per person to be available by 2035. The Old Quarter's resident population has already fallen between 30 and 50 percent over the past 20 years on its own, according to the Hanoi Association of Architects.
Read more: VnExpress (housing targets, GDP)
Vietnamese Banks Pay Up, or Skip the Bond Market Entirely
Vietnamese banks that managed to raise capital through bonds in April are paying 8.4 to 8.9 percent APR, nearly double the 5.2 to 5.3 percent the same gang was willing to accept a year earlier. Rates have risen close enough to lending yields that issuing bonds barely makes sense, and the market has noticed. Banks made up 100 percent of corporate bond issuance in Q1 2025 and only 30 percent in Q1 2026; real estate issuers took the top slot at nearly two-thirds. Rather than lock in those tepid yields, banks spent the quarter patching liquidity by way of taking deposits, interbank borrowing, and open market operations. Average lending rates at commercial banks were 7.4 to 9.7 percent in March, up 0.7 points since the end of 2025.
Read more: Vietnam Investment Review
MoMo Lends Faster, Scammers Move Faster Still
MoMo and VCBNeo signed a Pay Later deal this week. The deal will see artificial intelligence agents approving credit lines up to VND20 million instantly, with no paperwork, based on spending history. Vietnamese users lost VND8 trillion ($304 million) to online scams in 2025 - MoMo's CEO Nguyen Manh Tuong told a recent forum that the problem isn't “fraudulent” transactions, it's users willingly authorizing transfers while being psychologically manipulated. MoMo says its AI catches nearly 29,000 abnormal transactions and sends warnings more than 10,000 users every day.
Read more: Vietnam News (CEO quotes), Tipranks (Pay Later terms)
Gold, Hidden in Plain Circuits
Hanoi police have charged seven people, five of them Chinese nationals, in what investigators are calling the capital's largest-ever gold smuggling bust. Roughly 300 kg of gold worth VND1.2 trillion (about $47 million) moved in from Hong Kong hidden inside electronic equipment. The ringleader, a Chinese national, hired a local, to take delivery and pass the metal up the chain. The local man told investigators he knew the gold was smuggled and took the job anyway for VND150-200 million a month (a handy $6,000-$8,000 in his pocket). Once melted and recast into bullion, the proceeds cycled back through the same man, who then converted the earnings into cryptocurrency and sent the funds to accounts the ringleader specified. Police caught the gang trading in Bo De Ward six months after the investigation began, seizing five kilograms on the spot along with other evidence.
Read more: VnExpress
The Dissent Now Fits in an Emoji
Tens of thousands of Vietnamese Facebook users have settled on a censorship workaround that needs no words. The Haha reaction, dropped en masse beneath official government posts, now shows anything from sarcasm to outright disbelief. The trend has been on the rise for the past six months as authorities worked on better enforcement of content that they considered to be false or “harmful to public order.” Direct comment wars and political meme threads have largely given way to private groups, deleted posts, and a reaction that both says nothing, and everything. Haha!
Read more: UCA News
$76 for the Second Baby
A new mandate that goes into effect on the first day of July will provide some women VND2 million (~$76), for having two children. Local government budgets will be picking up the tab. The payment applies to ethnic minority women from very small population groups, residents of provinces with below-replacement fertility, and anyone hitting the two-child mark before age 35. The decree also expands prenatal screening to four conditions including Down syndrome and Thalassemia, and newborns will now get routinely checked for a handful of congenital issues.
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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