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Few countries have carried out reforms on the scale of Vietnam in recent years, while the Southeast Asian nation’s economy has shown impressive growth and resilience in the face of external shocks, an International Monetary Fund (IMF) official said on Tuesday.

Jochen Schmittmann, the outgoing regional resident representative for the IMF Resident Offices in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, made the remarks during a meeting with Vietnamese Prime Minister Le Minh Hung in Hanoi.

Also attending the meeting was Fazurin Jamaludin, who will assume the position of IMF representative for Vietnam and Laos from August 23.

The Vietnamese premier thanked Schmittmann for his contributions during his tenure, particularly his efforts to maintain policy dialogue and connect programs on training, institution-building, and capacity development.

He said the Party Central Committee's recent third plenum adopted a resolution on renewing Vietnam's development model, recognizing that the country is at a historic turning point that calls for deep and large-scale reforms.

The structural reforms are aimed at laying the foundation for long-term development and helping Vietnam achieve its two strategic 100-year goals: becoming a developing country with modern industry and upper-middle income status by 2030, and a developed, high-income country by 2045.

PM Hung said the government remains committed to pursuing economic growth while maintaining macroeconomic stability.

He underscored that Vietnam will ensure the safety of its financial and banking system, strengthen fiscal discipline, and develop capital markets to reduce its reliance on bank credit.

The country will not sacrifice macroeconomic stability or the safety of its financial and banking system for rapid but unsustainable growth, he added.

The prime minister also spoke about the upcoming National Assembly session, which is expected to consider and pass a series of bills to further improve Vietnam's legal and institutional framework in line with international standards and practices.

The move will help make the investment and business environment safer and more attractive while strengthening the confidence of businesses, investors, and international partners, he said.

PM Hung described the IMF as a strategic policy advisory partner and a trusted companion in Vietnam's socioeconomic development.

The government values the IMF's assessments and recommendations and considers them an important source of information for policymaking and implementation, he said.

PM Hung expressed hope that during Jamaludin's tenure, the IMF office would continue to serve as an important and proactive bridge, maintain regular policy dialogue, and offer practical advice to support Vietnam's goal of rapid and sustainable growth.

Echoing the prime minister's sentiments, Schmittmann spoke highly of the strong cooperation between Vietnam and the IMF, praising the country's impressive economic growth, effective response to external shocks, and significant reforms.

Few countries have been able to carry out reforms on the scale Vietnam has in recent years, he said.

He also lauded Vietnam's key development priorities, particularly its efforts to make breakthroughs in science and technology, innovation, and digital transformation.

Vietnam still has room to further accelerate growth, particularly by ensuring effective coordination between fiscal and monetary policies and other policy measures, Schmittmann said.

He offered several specific recommendations and affirmed the IMF's full support for Vietnam's goal of achieving double-digit economic growth, as well as its efforts in the financial, monetary, and banking sectors.

For his part, Jamaludin noted that Vietnam is entering a new phase of development with promising prospects and expressed his impression of the country's ambition to achieve double-digit growth.

He said he hoped to build on the positive results of cooperation between the IMF and Vietnam during his tenure.

The IMF stands ready to remain a trusted partner and work with and support Vietnam in realizing its development goals and priorities in the coming period, Jamaludin said.

The disparity between credit growth and deposit growth is creating a fierce underlying deposit raising race among commercial banks.

HÀ NỘI — While the capital market is underdeveloped, the banking system is burdened with the responsibility of supplying capital beyond its actual capacity, causing a fierce deposit raising competition and putting heavy pressure on the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV)’s monetary policy management.

Việt Nam’s economic development strategy for the 2026-2030 period sets an ambitious GDP growth target of 10 per cent or more per year.

According to detailed calculations from BIDV Research, to achieve this goal, the required average investment capital will be around US$250-260 billion per year. Looking further ahead to 2045, the economy's capital needs could reach $500 billion per year.

However, the Vietnamese economy still relies heavily on bank credit, with this channel consistently accounting for 50-60 per cent of the total capital supply.

Meanwhile, long-term capital channels such as the corporate bond market only account for a modest 3-6 per cent, and the stock market contributes about 10-18 per cent.

Phạm Xuân Hòe, former deputy director of the Institute of Banking Strategy, said that banks are simultaneously burdened with three heavy responsibilities: acting as payment intermediaries, providing short-term capital and financing medium- and long-term capital.

The consequence of this situation is that the balance sheets of the banking system are constantly overloaded, he noted.

Currently, about 80 per cent of deposits in Việt Nam have maturities of less than 12 months, while medium- and long-term loans once accounted for up to 47 per cent of total outstanding loans.

According to SBV data, as of June 15, credit growth reached 6.35 per cent, but deposit growth only reached 4.3 per cent. This 2 per cent gap forces banks to attract deposits in a variety of ways.

The disparity between credit and deposit growth is creating a fierce race to raise deposits among commercial banks. Meanwhile, depositors are easily misled by the varying interest rates offered.

While the listed interest rate on banks’ websites for a six-month term is only around 6 per cent per year, customers can actually receive 9-10 per cent per year through special conditions related to balances or certificates of deposit.

At one private bank, customers depositing VNĐ200 million or more are offered an interest rate of 8.5 per cent per year. Some even offered 9 per cent for deposits of VNĐ1 billion or more.

Chairman of Vietcombank’s board of directors Nguyễn Thanh Tùng pointed out the obstacles related to the imbalance of capital sources. According to Vietcombank's calculations, to achieve 10 per cent GDP growth, the investment rate needs to reach 40 per cent of GDP, but the average domestic savings rate is currently only 36.5 per cent.

If the growth of unofficial sectors is excluded, the accumulated domestic capital deficit is even more severe.

Tùng confirmed that his bank always adheres to directives on interest rate levels, so raised capital is currently insufficient to meet growth needs.

Although Vietcombank's loan-to-deposit ratio is below 70 per cent, a safe level compared to the SBV's 80 per cent ceiling, the bank still warned that there will not be enough capital for large projects in the future.

Tùng proposed raising capital from external sources by allowing the Ministry of Finance to issue international bonds to leverage national prestige and obtain the best possible interest rates.

He also expressed a desire for the capital market, especially the corporate bond market, to develop more rapidly.

The current size of Việt Nam's corporate bond market is only equivalent to about 10 per cent of GDP, significantly lower than other countries in the region such as Thailand and Malaysia.

SBV Governor Phạm Đức Ấn admitted that pressure to raise capital is making the central bank’s interest rate management difficult.

When capital demand is high but raised capital is limited, rising deposit interest rates will cause higher lending interest rates, directly impacting enterprises. To alleviate this pressure, the SBV is working to prevent commercial banks from engaging in extreme competition for capital mobilisation.

As for long-term solutions, the governor said the SBV is studying expanding the scope of eligible foreign currency loans serving investment purposes, especially for import businesses.

In addition, the amended Law on Credit Institutions allows commercial banks to manage collateral assets for businesses issuing bonds. This is expected to be a breakthrough, because many investors are currently hesitant about the collateral assets of corporate bonds, such as real estate, or assets formed from borrowed capital.

Only when banks participate in this asset management process can the bond market develop enough to alleviate the burden of medium- and long-term capital requirements in the banking system.

Vietnam’s current and future industrial expansion requires that industrial parks play a greater role in boosting productivity, resilience, and self-reliance.

The global economy is entering a period of heightened uncertainty, with increasingly rapid, complex, and unpredictable developments. Several international organizations have forecast that global economic growth will slow markedly in 2026 compared to 2025. Against this backdrop, countries are not only diversifying trade and investment relationships but also accelerating efforts to build more self-reliant economies supported by resilient and adaptable production capacity.

FDI continues to favor destinations that offer political and macro-economic stability, modern digital and energy infrastructure, strong connectivity, and manufacturing ecosystems capable of adapting to supply chain shifts, digital transformation, and the green transition. In this environment, Vietnam has strengthened its position as one of the region’s leading investment destinations through consistent and effective macro-economic policies.

The 14th National Party Congress set a strategic objective of achieving double-digit annual GDP growth during 2026-2030, with the goal of becoming a developing country with a modern industrial base by 2030. This direction was reinforced in Conclusion No. 18-KL/TW, issued on April 2, 2026, which identified industry as the primary engine of economic growth. The industrial and construction sector is targeted to expand by 12.3 per cent annually during 2026-2030, while manufacturing is expected to average 12.4 per cent annual growth.

Future industrial expansion, however, will be driven by a new development model centered on science and technology, innovation, higher value-added production, digitalization, green transformation, and deeper integration into global value chains. Achieving these objectives will require Vietnam’s industrial parks (IPs) and economic zones to be fundamentally repositioned, not only in terms of function and development model but also in the quality of investment they attract. Their role will increasingly be to support modern production ecosystems while enhancing productivity, resilience, and economic self-reliance.

Redefining industrial growth

IPs serve as the foundation for developing industrial clusters and integrated manufacturing ecosystems. Concentrating businesses within shared infrastructure reduces transaction costs, improves logistics efficiency, shortens project implementation timelines, and promotes greater specialization.

When fully connected with seaports, airports, railways, logistics hubs, research institutions, universities, and service-oriented urban areas, IPs become critical links in regional and global production networks. Stronger coordination between IPs in different localities would not only deepen regional integration but also redistribute manufacturing activities more efficiently and create new economic corridors.

IPs also remain one of Vietnam’s most important tools for attracting higher-quality FDI. Politburo Resolution No. 10-NQ/TW, issued on June 8, 2026, sets a target of integrating around 10,000 domestic companies into the value chains of foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs), including 500-1,000 Tier-1 suppliers. The development of IPs provides an important mechanism for implementing this strategy, by prioritizing investment projects involving advanced technologies, R&D, workforce training, and stronger links with domestic suppliers.

At the same time, IPs provide an ideal environment for implementing digital and green transformation. Digitalized management systems integrating land, construction, environmental, and energy data can streamline administrative procedures, lower compliance costs, improve incident response, monitor energy efficiency, facilitate data sharing, and strengthen real-time oversight.

Industrial symbiosis - where one company’s waste or byproducts become another company’s production inputs - can also help manufacturers meet increasingly stringent sustainability requirements in export markets. Successful international examples include Denmark’s Kalundborg industrial symbiosis model, South Korea’s transformation of the Ulsan industrial cluster, and Japan’s Kawasaki Eco-Town circular economy initiative.

Policy reforms

Vietnam has already introduced a series of important policies supporting IP development. Beyond the industrial development priorities established by the 14th National Party Congress and Conclusion No. 18, Resolution No. 29-NQ/TW, adopted in November 2022, calls for the development of large-scale modern eco-industrial parks (eco-IPs), expanded railway connections linking IPs with economic zones, airports, and seaports, and the development of coastal eco-IPs integrated with urban areas and major marine economic centers. It also encourages the industrial park-urban-service model.

These policy directions have been translated into concrete legal reforms. Government Decree No. 35/2022/ND-CP established the legal framework for a diverse range of IP models, including specialized IPs, supporting IPs, eco-IPs, high-tech IPs, and integrated industrial park-urban-service developments, while promoting industrial symbiosis.

The Law on Investment 2025 further decentralizes investment approval authority and introduces special investment procedures designed to accelerate project implementation.

More recently, under Official Letter No. 4551/NHNN-CSTT, dated May 29, 2026, the State Bank of Vietnam allowed credit institutions to exclude additional lending to IPs and export processing zones from real estate credit growth calculations in 2026 when monitoring lending limits. This measure is intended to facilitate greater financing for industrial infrastructure development.

Four priorities

Going forward, Vietnam should focus on four key policy priorities to accelerate IP development.

First, industrial infrastructure development should be aligned with major structural transitions, particularly through regulatory sandboxes that support the green and circular economy. In the digital era, data should be treated as strategic infrastructure alongside transportation, energy, and logistics networks, providing the foundation for smart governance, resource optimization, and higher-value business services. Wider adoption of AI, big data, the Internet of Things (IoT), and other digital technologies should improve infrastructure management, energy efficiency, environmental performance, and overall competitiveness, while cybersecurity and data protection must remain integral to the digital transformation process.

Second, policy should shift from expanding the number of IPs to improving their quality and effectiveness. As global supply chains are reconfigured and competition for investment intensifies, success will depend less on attracting more projects than on attracting high-quality investment capable of transferring technology, driving innovation, and strengthening links with domestic enterprises, thereby moving Vietnam higher up global value chains.

Third, investment promotion and incentive policies should evolve in line with Politburo Resolution No. 10 by moving away from input-based incentives toward performance-based support tied to investors’ commitments. This approach should encompass the full project lifecycle while encouraging stronger cooperation between foreign investors and domestic businesses.

Fourth, IPs should become more specialized and better integrated into value chains, evolving into comprehensive manufacturing ecosystems that connect anchor manufacturers, supplier networks, logistics centers, research and innovation institutions, workforce training facilities, financial services, and industrial support services within a coordinated development framework.

(*) Mr. Nguyen Duc Hien is Vice Chairman of the Central Commission for Policy and Strategy (CCPS), and Chairman of the CCPS Scientific Council.