With an economy on the rise, Vietnam’s To Lam can claim pole position
Vietnam is economically out-performing its peers in the Mekong Region, and is set to become ASEAN’s second-largest economy by 2028.
Fresh from its celebrations marking the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon and the annexation of South Vietnam, which proved a watershed in uniting the north and south behind Hanoi’s historical framework, the communist government of Vietnam has made a string of announcements that bodes well for the economy.
Unlike investment strategies in Cambodia and Laos, new deals are not all expensive major infrastructure projects that require unprecedented debt but instead, targeted spending, involving a range of foreign investors, is on the agenda.
They include a deal to expedite nuclear energy with Russia and – mindful of tariff negotiations ahead – there’s a billion-dollar golf course and a similar amount to be spent on a 60-story tower in Hanoi with companies tied to the family of U.S. President Donald Trump.
Those deals quite eloquently sum up the different political attitudes between Moscow and Washington. But in Vietnam, there’s a few more.
John Cockerill of Belgium and Viettel of Vietnam will jointly develop next-generation armored vehicles. There are advances in AI coding and language translations, new domestic shipping routes connecting Can Tho and Cai Mep, and tourist numbers are up 40 percent year-on-year.
This is a stark contrast with neighboring countries, where the willfully blind are still scratching their heads about marketing strategies and the unfulfilled promises that visitor numbers will return to pre-Covid levels.
Note to Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Vientiane, and dare I say it, Naypyidaw: dealing appropriately with human trafficking, scam compounds, and the negative headlines that follow would help.
For Hanoi, the icing on the communist cake was delivered by the Center for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). In its latest report, it forecast Vietnam will surpass Thailand and become Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy, after Indonesia, by 2028.
Vietnam’s economy is currently ranked fourth in ASEAN, with Singapore in third. CEBR also forecast Vietnam’s economic output will exceed Poland, Switzerland, Belgium, Australia, and join the world’s top 20 economies by 2036.
And, as friends in-country were quick to tell me, Vietnam has just featured on the cover of The Economist for the first time, with the magazine extolling the virtues of To Lam, who was appointed party chief last August. To my liking, he is one of the few regional leaders who preaches the virtues of thrift.
Lam has quickly changed perceptions of Vietnam, which not that long ago, was wallowing amid bitter and unusually loud public complaints over corruption amid the “blazing furnace” crackdown – which is still yielding results – that emerged out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Hundreds of senior government officials have been sacked or gone on trial as public acrimony mounted over the breathtaking scale of corruption. Among them, Truong My Lan, the real estate developer who embezzled $12.5 billion, about three percent of the country’s GDP.
She was sentenced to death plus 40 years behind bars, as another 84 people were convicted alongside her. Importantly, a very public leadership tussle within the ranks of the communist party paralleled “blazing furnace” that gave rise to To Lam.
His success to date is a stinging rebuke for Vietnam’s critics, while its supporters will see this as justification for the communist ethos of putting the common good through a centralized state-planned economy ahead of the individual rights that are so cherished in Western democracies.
That’s a stretch given Hanoi’s too often ruthless and needless attitude to dissenting voices, which was seen again in February when a Vietnamese court sentenced the prominent scholar and journalist Truong Huy San, better known by the pen name Huy Duc, to 30 months in prison.
He was jailed over Facebook posts that criticized the government and was convicted of “abusing democratic freedoms to infringe upon the interests of the state” under Article 331 of the penal code – a needless example of state oppression that promotes fear and undermines the common good.
From 2018 to February 2025, Vietnamese courts convicted at least 124 people under Article 331, and according to Human Rights Watch, compared with 28 people who faced similar charges and were handed heavy sentences over the previous six years. Still fair due to Vietnam, at least on the economic front.
It has been written before, Hanoi wants out of the CLMV club, the bottom four countries – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam – that constitute the poor relations within ASEAN. Vietnam is not a democratic country but this, at least, has been achieved.
By Luke Hunt – The Diplomat – June 10, 2025