In the early months of 2026, Ho Chi Minh City continues to witness positive signals in attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), with a clear shift towards sectors with high added value.

As of the end of 2025, Ho Chi Minh City remained the leading locality in Vietnam for FDI attraction, with a cumulative capital of approximately $142.2 billion, registered and disbursed for over 20,470 active projects. Following the administrative boundary merger, the city attracted more than $8.37 billion in registered FDI capital in 2025, the highest in the country.

According to statistics from the National Statistics Office  (the Ministry of Finance), in the first two months of 2026, Ho Chi Minh City attracted approximately $900.2 million in registered FDI capital, ranking second nationwide.

For 2026, the city aims to attract around $11 billion in FDI capital, prioritizing projects in high-tech, logistics, and financial-commercial centers. Along with the increase in scale, the demand for improving the quality of FDI inflows is becoming more pronounced. Previously, investment attraction mainly aimed at expanding capacity, leveraging cost advantages, and tax incentives. Now, criteria such as added value, technology transfer, and the ability to link with domestic enterprises are more emphasized.

The investment structure at the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026 also shows this shift, with the emergence of large-scale technology and financial projects, reflecting a trend of capital pouring into high-value-added sectors instead of labor-intensive industries.

One notable project is the agreement between G42 Group (UAE) and a consortium of domestic investors to develop data center infrastructure with a total estimated value of about $2 billion, indicating that FDI is strongly directed towards digital infrastructure.

Additionally, the financial infrastructure sector is also attracting international investors' attention. As soon as Vietnam's International Financial Center in Ho Chi Minh City (VIFC-HCMC) was launched on February 11, 2026, Vantage Point Asset Management (VPAM) committed to raising up to $10 billion over five years to invest in data infrastructure and the fintech sector. Simultaneously, the establishment of a $1 billion Digital Asset Investment Fund was also announced.

Despite the positive figures, economic experts believe that the 2026 context still poses significant challenges to the investment environment and growth quality. From a medium and long-term perspective, Mr. Ngo Thanh Huan, Chairman and CEO of FIDT Corporation, suggested that FDI, domestic consumption, and public investment will form three pillars of Vietnam's growth, but the role of each pillar is changing significantly.

Firstly, FDI remains a structural driver, measured not only by registered capital size but also by the quality of the value chain. New capital flows focus more on technology, mid-to-high-end production, and supporting infrastructure. This helps stabilize exports and production capacity, but the spillover effect will be slow and heavily dependent on the absorption capacity of domestic enterprises. The capital and labor-intensive model, which has been a growth engine for the past 20 years, needs time to gradually transition to technology and knowledge-intensive.

Secondly, domestic consumption acts as the "shock absorber" of the cycle. As the global economy diverges, domestic demand helps maintain growth momentum but will increase selectively and cautiously, reflecting real income and savings psychology after years of volatility. This is not a booming driver but a stable foundation and also the "room" for accumulation that the economy will need if the global macro context is more negative than expected.

Thirdly, public investment plays a role in activation and guidance. In the context of limited monetary policy space, public investment, if effectively disbursed, will be an important pull for short-term growth, while laying the foundation for long-term productivity through infrastructure, logistics, and energy.

"Overall, growth in the coming period will not come from a single pillar but from a harmonious coordination: FDI creates production capacity, consumption maintains the economic rhythm, and public investment paves the way for the next growth cycle," Mr. Huan noted.

Selective FDI attraction is necessary but also occurs in an increasingly fierce competitive context. Investors are concerned about policy stability, legal transparency, human resource quality, and the capacity of the domestic business ecosystem. This requires localities and management agencies to continue improving the investment environment in a predictable, synchronized, and more effective manner.

Ho Chi Minh City's Department of Finance stated that for the period 2026 - 2030, the city aims to attract FDI in depth, towards high added value and sustainable development. The focus is on attracting investment in high-tech fields such as semiconductors, digital technology like AI, IoT, big data, blockchain, new materials industries, and biotechnology.

To address bottlenecks and improve the investment environment, the city is implementing a comprehensive set of solutions such as infrastructure investment (roads, railways, seaports), completing mechanisms, and policies to attract FDI by reforming the incentive framework towards more international competitiveness, linking incentives with project efficiency.

At the same time, promoting administrative procedure reform towards digitalization, implementing a one-stop-shop mechanism, and increasing dialogue with businesses.