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Vanguard Puts $2.5 Billion Behind FTSE Upgrade
Vanguard's Duncan Burns said the asset manager expects to put about $2.5 billion of muscle into Vietnamese equities over the coming year. A $250-ish million first tranche will come soon as a result of FTSE Russell's September 21 upgrade of the market from “frontier” to “secondary emerging”-market status. Foreign investors bought a net 2.7 trillion dong ($104 million) on the Ho Chi Minh City exchange in the week leading up to the re-designation, and the debut itself was a little bumpy with the VN-Index falling nearly 16 points to slip below 1,800 as Vingroup and Vinhomes dragged on the benchmark.
Read more: Reuters (Vanguard investment), Vietnam News (market debut), Vietnam News (long-term reforms), Vietnam News (new accounts), Vietnam News (NYSE ceremony)
To Lam's New York Swing Nears a Trade Deal
US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told To Lam that their two respective negotiating teams had come "very close to a final outcome" on a reciprocal trade deal. It is the best sign so far that Washington and Hanoi are wiling to sign the framework floated last October. Two-way trade was $137.4 billion in the first eight months of 2026, up more than 23 percent year over year; the US took almost a third of exports. Vietnam took $19.3 billion in American goods in 2025 but sold $153 billion the other way.
Read more: Reuters (trade talks), Vietnam Investment Review (final framework), Vietnam Investment Review (investor roadshow), Vietnam News (company meetings), VnEconomy (trade figures)
VinSpeed Signs Siemens Train Deal, Clears Mangrove for Track
VinSpeed signed a turnkey contract worth up to $1.15 billion with Siemens Mobility for 10 Velaro Novo trains. The companies are hailing the deal as the world's first ATO-over-ETCS deployment on a national high-speed network. The trains will run on both of the 121-kilometer Hanoi-Quang Ninh and 54-kilometer Ben Thanh-Can Gio lines. Ho Chi Minh City is also moving to “convert” 4.57 hectares of protective mangrove for the Can Gio line, including 1.4 hectares of natural forest inside the biosphere reserve's buffer zone. VinSpeed has promised to do replacement planting and, of course, has an approved environmental impact assessment, but the city has classified the line as an "urgent transport project," which has made the legal path to disturbing the forest perhaps a little easier.Both lines are anticipating commercial service in 2028.
Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (Siemens deal), International Railway Journal (train specs), Nikkei Asia (rail plans), VnExpress (mangrove clearance), VnExpress (ownership)
Shark Thuy Charged in Phantom Share Case
Police have recommended prosecuting 29 people, including Nguyen Ngoc Thuy, the Egroup Education chairman better known to reality-TV audiences as Shark Thuy. The recommendation brings a closes to an investigation ordered after prosecutors sent the December 2025 indictment back for more work. Investigators say Thuy inflated Egroup's charter capital from VND32 billion to VND962.5 billion on paper before its affiliate, Egame, sold more than 206 million nonexistent shares to more than 10,000 investors between 2015 and 2023, promising to buy them back a year later at a profit. The total take was more than VND7.677 trillion (~$295M). Thuy has been under arrest since March 2024.
Read more: VnExpress (case details), Tuoi Tre (investigation)
Tesla Arrives but VinFast Owns the Sockets
Tesla Motors Vietnam now exists, at least on paper, but the plugs won’t… plug. VinFast's more than 150,000 charging ports don’t accept anything that isn't a VinFast whip, and its output makes up more than 90% of the domestic EV market. The second quarter of 2026 saw sales up almost 90 percent year on year. Pham Nhat Vuong's Vingroup does its best to keep that lead with an affiliated electric taxi fleet and a consumer empire that keeps the brand visible pretty much everywhere, from apartments to hospitals.
Read more: CNBC (VinFast advantage), Yahoo Finance (local company)
Washington Raises Bien Hoa Aid to $430M
The US and Vietnam have agreed to a new funding deal that will increase Washington's grant aid for the Bien Hoa Airbase dioxin cleanup to $430 million, with another $91 million for disability support in areas heavily sprayed with Agent Orange. The project has produced about 41 hectares certified to be clean since work began in 2019 and is expected to finish treating about 500,000 cubic meters of contaminated soil by 2031. Vietnam's defense ministry is also increasing its contribution to VND353 billion (almost $13.6M). Separate US support for Agent Orange victims and people with disabilities is $156 million at last report.
Read more: Tuoi Tre
Sun Group Races to Build Phu Quoc Rail, Runway and Airline
Sun Group is building the island's light rail, expanding its airport and introducing an airline to fly into it, and it wants it all done before APEC leaders arrive in November of next year. The 17.59-kilometer DT975 light rail from the airport to the APEC convention center has finished almost two-thirds of its technical trench work. Crews are running three shifts around the clock through the rainy season. The $2.2 billion Terminal 2 should be open in April 2027 and will increase airport capacity by half to nine million passengers a year. Sun PhuQuoc Airways has also taken delivery of its first widebody A330, one of eight that it expects to receive by the time Terminal 2 opens so it can use them on long-haul routes.
Read more: VnExpress (light rail), Tuoi Tre (airport expansion), VnExpress (new A330), VnExpress (aircraft parking)
HRW Hands Carney a To-Do List for To Lam
Human Rights Watch has given Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Governor General Louise Arbour a pointed brief in advance of To Lam's Ottawa visit. It includes more than 160 political prisoners and at least 28 activists who have been convicted so far this year, including bloggers Hoang Thi Hong Thai and Huynh Ngoc Tuan. Police have arrested at least 39 more people in 2026 for allegedly criticizing the government or joining disfavored religious or political groups. Vietnam also has yet to ratify ILO Convention 87 on workers' rights, which was expected to happen in January 2024 under its trade commitments with Canada. HRW wants Carney to bring up detained writer Pham Doan Trang and land-rights activist Can Thi Theu directly, and to warn that a failure to reform will hurt the bilateral relationship, including on trade.
Read more: Human Rights Watch
ADB Raises Growth Forecast to 7.8%
The Asian Development Bank raised its 2026 growth forecast to 7.8 percent, after a first-half GDP expansion of about 8.2 percent on the back of solid manufacturing, foreign investment and domestic consumption performances. August's PMI was 53.3, its highest read since March. Domestic firms' share of exports has dropped slightly from about a quarter in 2021 to a bit less than a quarter through last year. Foreign-invested companies grew exports by about a quarter last year and now command more than three-quarters of shipments. The trade deficit has been about $23 billion since January, mostly because machinery and components have been feeding largely foreign-owned factories.
Read more: Tuoi Tre (ADB forecast), VnEconomy (growth foundations), VnEconomy (domestic exporters)
Hanoi Ends Presumptive Tax as Household Firms Struggle
The government has done away with its presumptive tax system and raised the annual revenue threshold for VAT and personal income tax exemption to VND1 billion ($38,500). The change will affect about 3 million household businesses with tax obligations. A VCCI survey of more than 1,000 household businesses found more than four-fifths reporting lower revenue, a third saying that they plan to scale back. Fewer than one in 50 sees room for growth. Last year, almost three-quarters reported low profits and fewer than one in 50 say that they were able to meet their profit targets.
Read more: VnEconomy (business survey), Vietnam Briefing (tax rules)
Central Group Plans to Double Its Bet
Thailand’s Central Group plans to put up another $1.5 billion, matching what it has already spent since arriving in 2012. The retail giant says that its identified 200 urban sites for new malls, stores and hotels and has come to terms for a research partnership with resort developer Sun Group. CEO Olivier Langlet says land has become "very expensive," suitable plots are hard to find and murky regulations can complicate returns, but Central Retail's first-half revenue in Vietnam was more than 24 billion baht ($722 million), which was a fifth of its group total, so it’s a significant part of the business.
Read more: VnExpress
Rooftop Solar Push Stalls After Six Months
Six months after Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh told everyone to speed up rooftop solar for homes, offices, schools and hospitals, only two of 34 provinces have been able to introduce household support policies, and just two of 17 ministries have finished their implementation plans. The Ministry of Industry and Trade is now trying to get agencies to complete investment plans and tap state budgets, while at the same time telling provinces to get household incentives in front of their People's Councils. Decree 243 sweetens the deal, letting households sell more than half of their surplus solar output (if they can get it) through 2030.
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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