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Growth 9.95%, Q4 Needs 12.5%
The economy expanded at a pace of 9.95 percent in the third quarter, its fastest trot so far in 2026. The official nine-month figure is 9.01 percent, though one bank came up with 8.9 percent. Imports rose nearly 37 percent while exports were up about a quarter, swinging the trade balance from a $16.87 billion surplus a year earlier to a $19.42 billion deficit. The numbers imply that if the nation will hit Prime Minister Le Minh Hung’s full-year target of 10 percent, it’s going to need fourth-quarter growth above 12.5 percent.
Read more: VnExpress (official growth figures), VnEconomy (bank estimate), VnEconomy (fourth-quarter target)
Registered FDI Up 75%+ to $50.4 Billion
Foreign investors registered $50.36 billion in the first nine months, more than three-quarters above the year earlier investment tally. New projects were responsible for bringing in $29.24 billion (2.4x last year's figure); manufacturing and processing supported with $13.38 billion. Singapore led standings with $9.26 billion, almost a third of the new capital. Luxembourg ranked third with $4.99 billion, more than twice China's contribution. Disbursements found a five-year high of $21.07 billion, up about 12 percent.
Read more: VnEconomy
Samsung Arm Bets $1.88B on Chip Substrates
Samsung Electro-Mechanics is investing 2.51 trillion won ($1.88 billion) in its local subsidiary to make more FCBGA substrates. The substrates are used to connect AI accelerators, GPUs and CPUs to a mainboard. Production is due to start in June 2030, and the investment is part of a 6.78 trillion won program that has also allocated 4.27 trillion won to the company's Sejong operation in South Korea. Samsung says customer financing and long-term volume commitments are supportive of its heady plans.
Read more: Investment Monitor
Banks Line Up Nearly $7 Billion in Share Sales
VPBank wants to get a $560 million private placement as Japan's SMBC is in talks to raise its stake from 15 percent to 20 percent. Banks could collect nearly $7 billion from share sales by the end of 2027 - that would be the country's biggest bank capital drive yet. VPBank is one of three lenders that’s allowed to raise its foreign ownership cap to 49 percent. Strong credit demand and the shift to Basel III are forcing banks to find more capital.
Read more: Reuters
CB Shields $29B in Mega-Project Loans From Limits
The central bank has carved $29 billion in loans for 18 mega-projects out of its yearly credit growth limits. The big private groups behind them are asking for the same (or at least similar) treatment for 17 more projects that are going to need $36 billion. Bank credit has risen from 124 percent of GDP in 2021 to an estimated 143 percent at last reporting. East Asia Forum says smaller domestic companies, which have little access to bond and equity markets, are struggling as they need to navigate tighter loan conditions. Perhaps as a result, business registrations were down about 14 percent in July and full corporate dissolutions nearly quadrupled. More than 48,700 businesses shuttered during the first nine months of 2026, more than twice 2025’s figure.
Read more: East Asia Forum
Pandora Opens First Plant Outside Thailand
Pandora has opened a $150 million jewelry plant in Ho Chi Minh City, its first production site outside Thailand. The factory is able to make up to 60 million pieces a year. To give a sense of the scale of the operation, that will allow the Danish group to increase total capacity by about half. Goods from Thailand and Vietnam will face the same 12.5 percent US duty, so the new plant offers no immediate tariff savings, but it does give Pandora another option if Washington changes its mind on tariffs again. The factory is expected to employ 7,000 people once full production is underway.
Read more: CNBC (tariff calculus), Inside Retail Asia (factory capacity)
Russia Asks for Jets, Including Crew
Russian Transport Minister Andrei Nikitin has asked local carriers to lease passenger jets to Russian airlines, complete with crews, maintenance and insurance. He says Hanoi is mulling the request over. Moscow kept more than 400 leased Western aircraft after its invasion of Ukraine, resulting in about $8 billion in insurance claims. Its 11 largest airlines now have 130 of 673 aircraft grounded, roughly twice the normal share. Because Vietnam’s flag carrier flies only Airbus and Boeing jets, any transfer could invite US secondary sanctions. Russia's approaches elsewhere have come to nothing, and Ethiopia rejected a similar proposal because of the same risk.
Read more: Euronews (Russian request), UA News (sanctions risk)
Vingroup Eyes 200 Metro Trains, Alstom Confirms Up to 83
Vingroup says its agreement with Alstom is for 200 Metropolis trainsets for Hanoi, including 117 to be assembled in Vietnam. Alstom would build the first 83 in France, then provide technology, tooling and some of the most critical parts for Vingroup to assemble locally. The driverless trains are intended for a network that Hanoi wants to run over 979 kilometers (18 lines) by 2045. Nobody has provided any indication of cost, and Alstom's announcement confirms only an order for "up to 83" trains once financing closes.
Read more: Vietnam Investment Review (local assembly plan), Tuoi Tre (network ambitions), Alstom (confirmed order)
Nippon Paint Gets AkzoNobel Biz for $1.35 B
Nippon Paint has agreed to pay $1.35 billion for AkzoNobel's decorative paints businesses in Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Papua New Guinea and Australia. AkzoNobel, which manufactures under the Dulux brand, expects to keep about $1 billion after tax and payments to minority partners. The sale comes after Nippon Paint and Sherwin-Williams dropped a €12.5 billion bid for the whole company. AkzoNobel is still trying to complete its merger with US coatings maker Axalta. The Indonesia deal is due to close in late 2026, and the rest should follow by mid-2027.
Read more: Tuoitre
Long Thanh Airport to Open but Airlines Hold Back
Long Thanh, billed as one of the world's most expensive new airports, is still expected to open near Ho Chi Minh City in December, but airlines remain wary of leaving Tan Son Nhat, and the new airport is expected to need no more than a tenth of its capacity through March 2027. The passenger and cargo terminals are two of four contracts that continue running under schedule pressure. The state-owned airport operator is funding and building the project. No private company is involved yet, though UK Export Finance has shown some interested in guaranteeing loans for nearby transport links. Full capacity is is expected by the late 2027 winter schedule.
Read more: Routes (airline reluctance), VnEconomy (construction schedule)
Regulator Wants All Hanoi Stocks on HCMC Exchange
The State Securities Commission wants every Hanoi Stock Exchange listing moved to the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange by year-end. It is also considering two or three boards based on charter capital, foreign ownership, number of freely traded shares and compliance categorizations. Technical tests with the clearing depository are moving forward, but the regulator hasn’t set any transfer date yet.
Read more: Viet Nam News
Exporters Claim CPTPP Tariff Cuts on a Tenth of Sales
Exporters sold $70.6 billion of goods to CPTPP members in 2025, but only about a tenth of that total apparently qualified for the pact's tariff cuts with a “CPTPP certificate of origin.” That’s a low number, but it’s up off of a very low starting point - it just 2 percent in 2019, when Canada and Mexico were the only members who didn’t have any pre-existing trade deal. The main snags remain textiles and garments, which must prove qualifying origin from the yarn stage onward.
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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