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Mango Tree Diplomacy in Udon Thani
To Lam went to Udon Thani (Thailand) on Wednesday, planting a mango tree at a Ho Chi Minh memorial and then sitting down with business leaders at a Vietnamese restaurant to talk about direct flight routes. It's a charming opener for a state visit in the province with Thailand's largest Thai-Vietnamese community. The three-day trip is coming during 50 year anniversary year of diplomatic relations and it’s To Lam's first visit since taking office last month. Thai investors are participating in 804 projects in Vietnam worth $15.4 billion of registered capital (Thailand is Vietnam’s eighth-largest foreign investor), and two-way trade was $22.1 billion in 2025, (+8.3% vs 2024). Thursday will get To Lam an audience with Thailand's king and talks with Prime Minister Anutin; both governments want to push trade to $25 billion.
Read more: Khaosod English (arrival), VnEconomy (investment)
Italy Bumped From Top Ten by Upstart Vietnam
Vietnam pumped out 2.1 million tonnes of crude steel in April 2026, enough to push Italy out of the World Steel Association's global top 10 for the first time. Output in the first four months was 8.5 million tonnes, and the country is now Southeast Asia's largest producer by a comfortable margin. Vietnam’s journey to this point is worth reviewing. In 2000, local mills depended almost entirely on imported billets to make construction rebar. By 2025, output had risen to 24.6 million tonnes and the product mix had grown to include products like wind power towers, oil rigs, and shipbuilding plate. All is not perfect, in the story, however, as Australia's Anti-Dumping Commission has begun an investigation some forms of steel from Vietnam (and also South Korea) after a complaint.
Read more: Tvbrics (2023 baseline rank), VnEconomy (Italy surpassed), Kallanish (import volumes, timeline)
Hanoi Tells Speculators the Party's Over
Notice No. 64-TB/VPTW, from the Party Central Committee's Office last week, is an indication that Hanoi wants to reorient its property market around renters, not flippers. Party General Secretary and State President To Lam said clearly that "Housing is for living, not for speculation or asset accumulation." The notice names rental apartments in major cities, industrial parks, economic zones, and labor migration hubs as a priority through 2030, and it’s release is going to inspire a raft of agencies to crack down on profiteering. Amendments to both the Housing Law and the Real Estate Business Law are expected later this year.
Read more: VnEconomy (digital housing tech), VnEconomy (finance mechanisms)
Banks Catch a Chill in Hot Economy
The World Bank sees 6.8% growth for 2026, calling it the strongest-positioned economy in ASEAN after last year's 8% showing. Exports hit a record $475 billion (93% of GDP). The macro picture is pretty good, the banking sector picture is… less so. In Q1 2026, mid-sized retail lenders took the hardest hit, as return on average assets fell 10 basis points on-quarter to 1.4%, net interest margins were compressed an average of 11 basis points on higher funding costs, and CASA-to-gross loans slid 2 percentage points to 18%. Techcombank and ACB saw deposit outflows and MB and TPBank had weaker corporate deposits. Large state-owned banks were able to mostly hold steady, helped by stronger deposit franchises and more diversified loan books. VIS Rating expects NIM compression and rising credit costs to keep grinding on smaller lenders through the rest of the year.
Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (retail delinquencies), VnEconomy (FDI disbursement)
September or Bust
FTSE Russell's September 2026 review is still the date that stock market participants have circled on the calendar. An upgrade to growing-market status should bring in up to $1.7 billion in passive ETF money to Ho Chi Minh-listed stocks. The harder sell is going to be almost everything else. Foreigners have been net sellers so far this year, liquidity’s eased over the past eight weeks as deposit rates crept higher and money drifted into gold, dollars and bank savings accounts. The VN-Index's gains have clustered almost entirely in Vingroup-connected names even as the rest of the board has stumbled sideways. If you take out the Vingroup gang, the market is trading at about 12 times earnings, compared to a five-year average near 16.
Read more: The Investor
Dad's Money is Son's Problem
Pham Nhat Anh, 33, took over as chairman of VinFast on May 24, replacing Le Thi Thu Thuy, who left the board to focus on her role as vice chairwoman at parent company Vingroup. VinFast reported record revenues of VND90.4 trillion ($3.6 billion) last year with a net loss of more than VND97 trillion, and the company has said that it plans to sell off its manufacturing operations in Vietnam and shift roughly VND182 trillion in debt to a group of buyers that includes his father, Pham Nhat Vuong, Southeast Asia's richest man. Anh joined VinFast in February 2019 after running Vingroup's Vinpearl resort arm as deputy CEO, and joined the board last November. He also runs VinMetal, the group's steel subsidiary. Dad has promised the slimmed-down VinFast will become profitable next year.
Read more: VnExpress
Death Row Birkin Beats Reserve by 482%
A Hermès bag seized from condemned tycoon Truong My Lan received 119 bids and sold for a stunning VND11.7 billion (~$444k!) on Thursday, 482% above its reserve price, while a size 30 companion piece got only four bids and closed 8.5% above reserve at VND2.54 billion. Together the two bags were worth $536,000 at Ho Chi Minh City's Asset Auction Service Center, a contrast to the Reverie Saigon yacht, which has been listed multiple times and remains unsold after an 18% price cut to VND42.5 billion. Lan, sentenced to death for the $27 billion Saigon Commercial Bank fraud, told the court in September 2024 that one bag came from Italy and the other was a gift from a Malaysian billionaire, asking that they be returned as keepsakes for her descendants. Investigators have taken more than 1,200 properties and other assets tied to her Van Thinh Phat empire.
Read more: VnExpress
Novatek Visits Hanoi
Novatek vice chairman Sergey Soloviev has had a busy couple of days pumping hands and chewing ears in Hanoi. He had a May 25 sit-down with EVN deputy CEO Nguyen Tai Anh, then a May 26 meeting at the Ministry of Industry and Trade with deputy minister Nguyen Hoang Long, and officials from MoIT and “provincial authorities.” The Russian company, which put Yamal LNG on the global map in 2017, is now pitching the full stack, including fuel supply, import terminals, regasification, and gas-fired generation. EVN made clear none of it can possibly work in isolation - port geology, grid connectivity, and centralized import hubs all need to be preconditions for any northern deal. Novatek representatives had previously visited Thanh Hoa in April - they’re keen on getting involved with planned LNG power projects there.
Read more: The Investor (EVN energy security), Portnews RU (MoIT meeting)
Hanoi Sets a Price on Wrongthink
A decree that will come into force on July 1 sets out fines of up to VND 30 million for social media users who share fabricated, false, or "distorted" content, post maps that misrepresent the country’s sovereignty, or produce material mimicking journalism (is The Memo in jeopardy?) Vietnamese individuals, foreign nationals, telecom firms, internet providers, domain registrars, and even representative offices of foreign postal operators are all going to fall within the scope of the law. Account administrators who don’t yank flagged content when ordered be subject to the same fines. The decree doesn't make clear who it will be that decides what counts as distortion.
Read more: VnExpress
Born After 2010? No Smokes for You.
Vietnam's Health Ministry has proposed a generational tobacco cutoff that would make it permanently illegal to sell cigarettes to anyone born from 2010 onward. The draft will be read in the National Assembly's second session (October). A deputy chief of office at the Medical Services Administration shared the plan at a World No Tobacco Day workshop on May 22, suggesting the cutoff would produce a generation that never starts smoking instead of one that's told to quit. New Zealand pioneered this model in 2022, then scrapped it two years later when a new government was ushered in. The U.K.'s Tobacco and Vapes Act 2026, which applies to anyone born on or after January 1, 2009, is still standing. Vietnam has 15.8 million adult smokers, and 41 percent of its male population enjoys the cancer stick.
Read more: VnExpress
Banks Want More Than Title Deeds
The Ministry of Finance wants to let SMEs pledge digital assets, intellectual property, and future property rights as loan collateral. There’s definitely a need for something to change. Currently less than one in 10 SMEs can get a bank loan (compare with 56.1% of large firms), in a country where SMEs make up 95% of all enterprises but contribute less than 20% of revenue. FiinGroup's 2025 credit outlook explains a little about why banks have kept their distance, as more than 70% of SMEs categoriezed as medium-to-high risk counterparties and the processing of a small loan takes as much work as a large one.
Read more: Vietnam Insiders (policy shift), VnEconomy ($5.7T gap)
Landlocked Laos Asks Hanoi for a Ride to the Sea
At the Vietnam-Laos Logistics Business Forum in Vientiane on May 26, Laos laid out a 12-point reform plan with specific targets. The plan would cut customs clearance times at border crossings by at least half, import-export licensing times by at least 40 percent, and get rid of at least half of what the plan calls "unnecessary checkpoints" on domestic routes. The ask to Hanoi is also concrete, namely to share logistics experience, help build out warehousing infrastructure, and give Lao better access to the Vung Ang Port complex in Ha Tinh. Some of the challenges between here and there are incompatible electronic customs documentation, infrastructure bottlenecks, and high cross-border costs. A proposed Vung Ang-Vientiane rail route is also on the table.
Read more: Fibre2Fashion
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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