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Sep 03, 2026

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Hanoi Trades Tax Holidays for Talent and Tech

Politburo Resolution No. 10 tells foreign investors the old deal is off. Hanoi is done competing firstly on tax breaks now that the Global Minimum Tax has more or less removed the advantage that approach previously brought. Instead, officials are offering to co-fund infrastructure, subsidize R&D and technology transfers, and pay to train the engineers needed by multinationals, while fast-tracking visas and work permits for semiconductor, AI and data center projects. Registered FDI was $38.06 billion in the first seven months of 2026, up 58 percent from the year prior, and disbursed FDI was $15.2 billion, the highest seven-month total in five years.

Samsung's Plants Print More, Keep Less

Samsung's four plants raked in $17.3 billion of Q2 revenue, up 20 percent, but combined profit was down almost a fifth to $996 million as its smartphone business took a hit. Thai Nguyen's SEVT, the flagship phone plant, saw profit drop to $361 million from $571 million, as margins were slashed from 9.1 percent to 4.8 percent. Bac Ninh's SEV lost almost a quarter of its profit (margins similarly down to 5.8 percent from 9.2 percent). The pressure came from upstream, as global smartphone shipments dropped 11 percent in the weakest Q2 since 2013. A memory chip shortage also pushed component costs up. Not every plant suffered however - display maker SDV saw its best margins since Q3 2023, and HCMC's SEHC grew profit more than 20 percent to $94 million on $1.5 billion of revenue.

Deputy Health Minister Detained in Bribery Case

Deputy Health Minister Tran Van Thuan, 56, has been held on a bribery charge under Clause 4, Article 354 of the Penal Code. That makes him the highest-ranking person caught so far in the Viet My Medical investigation. Thuan, an oncologist who ran K Hospital before joining the ministry in 2020, is accused in a case that came to light in July with the arrests of Viet My chairman Bui Chan Phuong, director Ha Van Nam, and accounting chief Tran Thi Hong Hanh on smuggling and accounting charges. Phuong ran three companies in Vietnam, five in Singapore and three in Hong Kong, cycling medical equipment and drugs through the offshore network to inflate prices before selling them on to Vietnamese hospitals. Police are still tracing the money and other officials involved.

CP Vietnam Cracks Korean Chicken Market

C.P. Vietnam sent its first shipment of processed chicken to South Korea after more than half a decade of effort that began with the $250 million CPV Food Binh Phuoc complex. The company was required to fill out two questionnaires of about 1,000 pages each and hosted South Korean quarantine and food safety inspectors on-site for half a year under an eight-step assessment. The market opened when Seoul and Hanoi each allowed two companies to trade processed chicken, and C.P. Vietnam was the first Vietnamese firm to do what was needed to get a foot in the door. Its chicken now ships to eight markets, including Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Russia.

Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (plant), VnEconomy (approval), VnExpress (next steps)

Qualcomm Wants Vietnam in Its AI Top Three

Cristiano Amon told General Secretary To Lam that Qualcomm is treating Vietnam as a "high-priority" in its Asia plans and hopes to make the country its third-largest AI R&D hub. The chipmaker already runs an R&D center in Hanoi and has worked with Viettel and VinSmart for two decades already. Lam wanted more, though, pushing for more technology transfer, management know-how, and ties to Vietnamese universities/ suppliers so local firms move up the value chain instead of just playing host foreign engineers. Qualcomm's interests fit Politburo Resolution No. 10 (mentioned in the first story, above), which is moving incentives from tax breaks toward R&D and talent development.

Toyota Commits $283M to EVs in Phu Tho

Phu Tho's provincial government handed Toyota Motor Vietnam an amended investment certificate as it upgraded its factory there to a $283 million project with capacity for about 52,000 vehicles a year. The new permit adds electrified vehicle assembly to a plant that has spent decades building gasoline-powered Camrys and Vios sedans, in addition to the stamping and painting workshops meant to support future CKD models. Construction is expected to start in May, which puts Toyota years behind VinFast, whose EVs are already on the road.

Tay Ninh Gets $3.5B Data Center Pitch

A three-party consortium of SAIGONTEL, World Vista United, and SAIF Eagle II gave Tay Ninh's People's Committee a Letter of Interest for a data center built to Tier IV specs, including “5 nines” uptime, direct liquid and immersion cooling, and racks dense enough to draw 150kW each. The pitch foresees latency of less than 18 milliseconds to Singapore, which is an indication that AI workloads are in the crosshairs. No permits have been issued and no financing has closed yet, however, so for now it is just a letter of interest. Construction is expected to be started late this year with commercial operations starting next year.

Dong Nai to Build $2.29B Airport Metro Link

A government decision is giving Dong Nai Province, not HCMC, the job of running a 44.5-km metro extension to Long Thanh Airport as a public-private partnership. The VND60.26 trillion ($2.29 billion) build would be done in two phases, first a 7.1-km stretch from Suoi Tien to the new administrative center, then a further 36.3 km to the airport. It will require about VND4.32 trillion in resettlement costs to buy land and move people out of the way. Construction is slated for 2026 to 2030, which would get it open about six years after the Ben Thanh-Suoi Tien line started as the city's only metro. Long Thanh airport itself is expected to open on December 1.

Crypto Rule-Breaking Costs

Decree 284/2026 took effect Tuesday, with fines of VND200 million ($7,671) for mishandling crypto account data and a mechanism to allow regulators to suspend trading for up to 12 months for repeat anti-money-laundering failures. A skipping of customer identity checks will attract fines of up to VND120 million; operating without internal AML policies gets a VND200 million ceiling, in addition to the forced surrender of illicit gains. Chainalysis estimates 2025 taxable crypto activity in Vietnam at $8.1 billion, which is equal to about nine percent of the government's $89.9 billion expected revenue and the sixth-highest ratio on the planet. Payments account for $5.2 billion of that, nearly two-thirds of the total, dwarfing $1.8 billion in profits and $1.1 billion in income.

Read more: Tuoitre, VnEconomy (global ranking)

Hanoi Wants All Permits Online by 2027

Resolution 258/NQ-CP is putting the order in to make every “eligible” administrative procedure available by way of an online portal by sometime next year. Paperwork will be expected to be submitted only once and can be reused between agencies in a push that will support the government's double-digit growth hopes through 2030. The Ministry of Finance is also rewriting the 2017 SME law, which would raise the revenue threshold for SME status to VND400 billion ($15.7 million) and allow micro-enterprises with revenue under VND10 billion pay tax on turnover instead of profits. Neither change will affect the cost of shuttering a company - dissolving a long-dormant company can run to costs of as much as VND100 million ($3,800) once back taxes, license fees and late-filing penalties are considered, which is about 20 times the cost of what it typically costs to get a company registered in the first place.

Read more: VnEconomy (Resolution 258 text), Vietnam Insiders (SME law draft), Tuoitre (dissolution costs)

SHB Dangles 9.2%

SHB pushed its six-month deposit rate to 9.2 percent, up 0.2% in two weeks, even though Agribank pays just four percent for the same term and Vietcombank offers a relatively paltry 3.5 percent online. VPBank raised its six-month online rate to 8.8 percent. The State Bank of Vietnam is pushing commercial lenders to funnel cash toward small and medium businesses, with 12 banks registering VND408 trillion ($15.6 billion) in credit programs. Lending rates for SMEs have dropped 0.2 to 0.7 percentage point, even as deposit costs have been climbing. What these rates might tell about the health of the system will be left as an exercise for the reader.

Can Tho Airport Cuts Fees to Win Back Airlines

Can Tho International Airport now runs a grand total of zero international routes, even thought the Department of Construction says it has the capacity to handle more traffic than it currently has. The proposed fix is a two-year, 50-percent cut in takeoff, landing, and air traffic control fees. The Ministry of Finance killed an earlier plan to subsidize airlines directly as it said the idea was inconsistent with the State Budget Law. City officials are betting that tourism might be able to do what subsidies couldn’t. Can Tho brought in 10.5 million visitors through the end of August, but the bigger threat is Long Thanh, the new airport being built outside Ho Chi Minh City which is, of course, aimed squarely at international routes.

Autonomous Vehicle Trials at Hoa Lac

The Hanoi People's Committee signed off on a 24-month trial allowing for autonomous buses, robotaxis and delivery robots to be unleashed at Hoa Lac Hi-Tech Park. The vehicles will use LiDAR, HD 2D and 3D maps and AI on an 11.5 km route. Buses get an eight-passenger cap, robotaxis four. Speeds are limited to 40 km/h, and operations will be suspended during heavy rain, fog, thunderstorms or flooding. Each vehicle needs a licensed safety supervisor onboard ready to grab the wheel. Registration, license-plate and inspection rules will be waived inside the zone, and commercial fares are banned for the entire trial. The Department of Science and Technology says it will evaluate results after the 24-month window before deciding next steps.

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