At the conclusion of the 14th National Party Congress in Vietnam, a resolution was issued summing up the key objectives for the party for the next five years, the most prominent of which are that development should be fast, sustainable, and clean.
Within these parameters, however, it advances a range of proposals that, in some cases, appear internally inconsistent and that lack the detail needed to properly assess their potential.
In this context, optimism for rapid and significant reform may be somewhat misplaced.
With this in mind, this article looks at a few of the key ideas this document lays out and how they fit together, or don’t, as the case may be.
Targets
Firstly, it sets a goal of becoming a high-income country by 2045.
Technically speaking, according to the World Bank’s definition and data, this would mean growing from a gross national income per capita (GNI) of about US$4,490 (2024) to US$13,935 in about two decades.
The resolution, however, sets a target of ten percent annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth between 2026 and 2030, aiming for a per capita GDP of US$8,500 by the end of this decade.
Point of note, GDP and GNI are not the same thing, and therefore, the use of GDP as a key metric would suggest that drafters are using a different benchmark. It’s not clear from the text what that is.
Regardless, reaching US$8,500 by 2030, using National Statistics Office data, which puts Vietnam’s GDP per capita at US$5,026 in 2025, will mean growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 11 percent between now and then.
The resolution, however, lays out a GDP growth target of just 10 percent per annum.
It’s not just this, though, that doesn’t really gel.
Science, technology, and innovation
The resolution frames science, technology, and innovation as a means of boosting productivity. In particular, it singles out semiconductors and artificial intelligence.
Vietnam, however, has problems with intellectual property protection.
While some of its regulations are world-class and it has signed up to most major global IP protection initiatives, the reality is that enforcement has been weak at best.
It also has power supply challenges, particularly in the north, where power outages in the summer months are not all that uncommon.
Moreover, innovation will require a shift from rote learning to a focus on critical thinking, including reasoning and questioning. These habits may be difficult to confine to science and technology alone, with the potential to extend to broader institutional and civic structures.
Private sector development
The resolution also highlights a focus on developing the domestic (as opposed to foreign-invested) private sector.
This connects to Resolution 68 issued last year, eight years after a 2017 resolution was passed, which did much the same, though with limited tangible outcomes.
This idea — developing homegrown conglomerates capable of competing on the global stage — is modelled on South Korean chaebol development.
South Korea, however, supported its big domestic firms by raising tariffs on imports of certain goods to make them less competitive and then making cheap loans available to domestic producers to soak up the increased demand.
Vietnam’s free trade agreements, however, limit its use of tariffs.
It can still issue cheap capital, but in the event local products are not competitive in price and quality with their foreign competitors, then it seems unlikely to do much good.
The state-owned economy
The new congress has also carved out a space for the state-owned economy.
This follows on from Resolution 79, which looks a lot like a response to the threat to state-owned enterprises (SOE) from an over-emphasis on the private sector — a possible sign of friction in this new reform agenda.
Similar to 68, it envisions internationally competitive enterprises, though state-owned, not private.
SOE reform, however, is constantly talked about, but movement is very slow — of 30 SOEs slated for some level of privatisation during the 13th Congress, none had successfully done so by the end of 2025.
Institutional reform
The resolution also talks extensively about better governance.
This has seen two notable changes over the past 12 months or so.
The first was condensing 63 provinces into 34, laying off roughly 80,000 public sector workers in the process, and the second was replacing provincial heads with leaders from other provinces.
It’s not clear how the first benefits Vietnam’s development agenda. For most projects, a firm only needs to deal with one provincial government; this does not seem to have changed.
Moreover, replacing the provincial leaders is a short-term solution with nothing to stop new patronage networks from forming moving forward.
It also risks causing projects to stall while these new leaders find their feet.
More to the point, however, this assumes the problem was the bureaucrats as opposed to the bureaucracy — if the delays were in fact caused by laborious processes and procedures, then with fewer staff, it may even cause greater delays.
So, what’s the point?
Firstly, Vietnam has been in a period of reform for decades now, inching bit by bit toward a more free market economy — 6ish percent a year GDP growth was already good, and it’s never really been made clear why it wasn’t enough.
That aside, the reforms that it’s being suggested might drive Vietnam forward at pace, are largely cosmetic at the moment and face a number of roadblocks if they are to move forward.
That said, they might not even be able to achieve the growth the government is looking for, failing to address the key structural challenges restraining the economy — things like capital controls, credit growth targets, or low consumer confidence, to name just a few.
All of that is to say that expecting huge economic growth on the back of these particular reforms seems optimistic, and making decisions assuming they will lead to significant change may not be prudent.