For the best part of four decades, Vietnam’s foreign investment success or otherwise has been measured by registered capital, new projects, and export growth. That strategy helped transform the country into one of Asia’s leading destinations for FDI. Today, however, policymakers argue that attracting more capital is no longer sufficient. The challenge is ensuring that foreign investment strengthens Vietnam’s own productive capacity rather than operating alongside it.
That shift in thinking lies at the heart of Politburo Resolution No. 10, the new strategy for developing the foreign-invested sector. Rather than asking how much investment Vietnam can attract, the Resolution asks how international capital can generate greater value for the domestic economy. Its answer is the development of an investment ecosystem where foreign capital, domestic enterprises, technology, talent, and institutions work together to drive sustainable growth.
The shift also reflects broader changes in the global investment landscape. As geopolitical competition intensifies and the Global Minimum Tax reshapes investment incentives, multinational companies are placing greater emphasis on institutional quality, skilled labor, innovation, and supply-chain resilience. Vietnam’s new strategy is designed to position the country for that next phase of global competition.
Changing mindset
Speaking at the “Resolution 10: Building a High-Quality FDI Ecosystem” policy dialogue, held recently by the Government Information and Communications Bureau, Ms. Bui Thu Thuy, Deputy Director of the Foreign Investment Agency at the Ministry of Finance (MoF), described the Resolution as a response to a fundamentally different development context. While affirming that Vietnam’s FDI strategy over the past four decades had been instrumental in mobilizing resources for economic development, she acknowledged that stronger links between foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) and the domestic economy had yet to fully materialize.
The Resolution therefore represents more than a refinement of existing policy. It broadens the focus from attracting foreign investors to developing the wider foreign-invested economy, encompassing direct and indirect investment as well as international financial institutions. It shifts evaluation criteria from project numbers and registered capital toward technology transfer, value creation, and stronger links with domestic businesses. Investment incentives, traditionally based on sectors or locations, would increasingly be tied to measurable outcomes, rewarding projects that generate innovation, modern technologies, and broader economic spillovers rather than operating as isolated enclaves.
For Mr. Phan Duc Hieu, Standing Member of the National Assembly’s Economic and Financial Committee, the significance of Politburo Resolution No. 10 lies less in its individual policy measures than in its underlying philosophy. While previous reforms had already emphasized higher-quality investment, he argued that the new Resolution adopts a far more systematic approach by looking beyond market entry to the entire lifecycle of foreign investment. The objective is no longer simply to attract multinational companies through tax incentives but to build an ecosystem encompassing infrastructure, skilled labor, business services, and living conditions that enables investors to thrive while creating lasting benefits for Vietnam.
According to Mr. Hieu, high-quality foreign investment does not automatically produce technology transfer or productivity gains. Those benefits depend on whether domestic companies possess the capabilities to learn from foreign partners, integrate into global supply chains, and adopt new technologies. Strengthening Vietnamese enterprises therefore allows the country not only to capture greater value from FDI but also to build the self-reliance and competitiveness needed for long-term economic development.
Mr. Binu Jacob, CEO of Nestlé Vietnam, said the country’s evolving strategy reflects the priorities of multinational companies increasingly focused on creating value across their supply chains. He pointed to Nestlé’s own experience of helping a small Vietnamese logistics partner grow from operating a single truck into a company with a fleet of 50 vehicles serving multiple major clients. For Vietnam, such examples illustrate precisely the kind of long-term industrial upgrading Politburo Resolution No. 10 seeks to encourage.
Real measure of success
Policymakers increasingly argue that success must be measured by whether foreign investment helps build stronger Vietnamese companies capable of competing alongside multinational corporations.
For decades, one of the persistent weaknesses of Vietnam’s FDI model has been the limited interaction between FIEs and domestic enterprises.
Politburo Resolution No. 10 seeks to narrow that divide by strengthening the relationships surrounding foreign investment. Rather than treating FIEs as isolated contributors to exports and industrial output, the new strategy views them as integral components of Vietnam’s broader economic development. In practice, that means creating clearer incentives for technology transfer, workforce development, and supplier upgrading, while clarifying the respective responsibilities of government and investors in building a stronger industrial ecosystem.
The discussion also reflected a broader shift in what multinational companies themselves expect from investment destinations. For Mr. Jacob, tax incentives are no longer the decisive factor for global investors, particularly in the era of the Global Minimum Tax. Long-term investment decisions instead depend on whether governments can provide a predictable policy framework, a skilled workforce, and an ecosystem capable of supporting sustained expansion. Investors can adapt to regulatory change, he argued, provided those changes are transparent and predictable. What undermines confidence is uncertainty rather than reform itself.
Nestlé’s own experience illustrates the value of that approach. More than two decades ago, the company chose not merely to source coffee from Vietnam but to invest in the country’s long-term competitiveness by partnering with research institutes, government agencies, and farmers to improve coffee varieties and production techniques. Those collaborative efforts have produced higher-yield, climate-resilient coffee plants while significantly increasing farm productivity, demonstrating how foreign investment can generate lasting benefits well beyond individual corporate operations.
FDI enterprises are truly long-term partners, deeply committed to the development directions and policies that Vietnam has pursued, is pursuing, and will pursue.
Ultimately, the discussion returned to a familiar conclusion: stronger Vietnamese companies remain the essential link between foreign investment and long-term national competitiveness. Vietnam’s ambition, Mr. Hieu argued, should extend beyond creating domestic suppliers for multinational corporations. The longer-term goal is to develop Vietnamese companies capable of leading their own global value chains, supported by coordinated reforms across investment policy, private sector development, and State-owned enterprise reform.
Turning ambition into execution
Turning that ambition into reality, however, will depend less on new policy objectives than on how effectively they are implemented. Politburo Resolution No. 10 provides the strategic direction. The challenge now is building the institutions, coordination mechanisms, and partnerships capable of delivering it.
For local administrations, that will require moving beyond competing for investment project-by-project. Mr. Le Quang Hoa, Vice Chairman of the Hung Yen Provincial People’s Committee, argued that Vietnam needs a more coordinated national approach to investment promotion, one that identifies the most suitable industries for each region rather than encouraging localities to compete for the same projects. Better regional planning, stronger logistics connections, and greater flexibility to pilot new institutional models would allow localities to develop complementary industrial clusters instead of duplicating one another’s efforts. He also called for a national investment promotion agency capable of presenting a unified strategy to major global investors.
For Mr. Hieu, however, the decisive factor lies elsewhere: trust. While partnerships between multinational corporations and domestic firms are ultimately voluntary, he argued that market forces alone are unlikely to produce the scale of cooperation Vietnam seeks. The government therefore has an important role to play by creating incentives that encourage collaboration and by establishing trusted intermediary institutions capable of connecting businesses and reducing commercial risk. Industry associations, local authorities, and dedicated matchmaking organizations could all help bridge the information and credibility gap that often prevents Vietnamese suppliers from entering global value chains.
Ms. Thuy pointed to Intel’s experience in Vietnam as an illustration of the challenge. Although the company began investing in the country in 2006, it took nearly two decades before it selected its first Vietnamese supplier, Fab 9, to join its global supply chain. Rather than relying on mandatory localization requirements, which would conflict with Vietnam’s international commitments, the MoF is preparing proposals to encourage FIEs to train domestic suppliers, undertake joint R&D, and invest in capability building. Future incentives would increasingly reward the value companies create after they arrive, rather than simply the investment they commit at the outset.
Mr. Jacob perhaps offered the discussion’s simplest but most telling observation. Instead of referring to multinational corporations as “foreign investors,” he suggested Vietnam increasingly think of them as “investment partners.” The distinction is more than semantic. Investors bring capital; partners help build capabilities. Ultimately, that is the benchmark by which Politburo Resolution No. 10 will be judged, not by the amount of capital it attracts but by whether it produces stronger Vietnamese companies, deeper technology transfer, more innovation, and a more competitive economy.
