Tran Toan Thang, at the National Institute for Economics and Finance (Ministry of Finance), revealed that a report on Vietnam’s 500 largest private enterprises (VPE500), scheduled for release in August, will provide a snapshot of the growth of the private sector.

Awaiting technology unicorns

Vietnam has only one private enterprise, Vingroup, ranked in Fortune’s top 50 largest companies in Southeast Asia in 2024, and none in the top 500 largest companies globally. This ranking has remained virtually unchanged compared to three years ago when we interviewed economic experts on the development of Vietnam’s private sector after 35 years of the Doi Moi reform.

Sharing his thoughts at that time, Dr Nguyen Dinh Cung expressed concern that Vietnamese businesses persistently refuse to grow and cannot grow, while the entrepreneur community continues to age, making succession difficult. The Vietnamese economy cannot forever depend on foreign-invested companies.

The expert felt that the private sector had reached a new development phase threshold, requiring a breakthrough but lacking sufficient momentum to advance. However, that was the story of three years ago. Currently, facing the remarkable progress of science and technology alongside unpredictable global political-economic developments, our Party continues to innovate economic development thinking, creating breakthroughs to lead the country into an era of strong development and prosperity. At this crucial moment, the private sector is identified as the most important driving force in realising that aspiration.

According to Dr Tran Dinh Thien, former Director of the Vietnam Institute of Economics, this is truly a revolution in the Party’s perception of the private sector, which creates confidence and motivation for Vietnamese private enterprises to compete and grow. The private sector’s new mission is to drive the Vietnamese economy to a new level, becoming a force in the global economic system, and ensuring national competitiveness and an independent, self-reliant economy. To achieve this, Vietnam needs to build a strong Vietnamese business community based on the private sector with large companies playing a pivotal, leading role to participate more deeply in the global supply chain.

Studying Vietnam’s economic development process, Dr Le Duy Binh also recognised that business development is at a turning point. In the ongoing streamlining revolution, many people will retire early or resign. This is the time to ignite the entrepreneurial spirit so that capital and intellectual resources can be utilised.

“When all citizens consider starting a business, the economy will thrive. This was demonstrated when the 2020 Enterprise Law was introduced at the beginning of the state-owned enterprise equitisation policy expansion, attracting intellectual resources from the state sector to develop the private economy. Many large private enterprises grew from this opportunity,” Binh recalled.

In December 2024, the Politburo issued Resolution 57 on breakthrough development of science-technology, innovation and national digital transformation. This and a forthcoming resolution on private economic development are expected to be leveraged for the private sector to take off.

Cung believed that the Party’s new economic thinking and the powerful spread of the 4th Industrial Revolution would promote the formation of a new generation of entrepreneurs in the technology sector. Vietnam has a vast startup community connected with networks of Vietnamese working in foreign technology corporations, which will be nurtured to become technology unicorns rather than relocating to the US or Singapore to start businesses.

Leverage from effective policy implementation

The upcoming Politburo resolution on the private sector will provide strategic orientations to encourage, support and guide the development of Vietnam’s private enterprises.

“For the first time, the draft resolution takes a new approach, with specific policy content that can be implemented immediately after the resolution is issued,” shared Bui Thu Thuy, Deputy Director of the Agency for Private Enterprise and Collective Economy Development (Ministry of Finance) and a member of the resolution drafting team.

The draft resolution will propose solutions for large enterprises to participate in solving major national issues through commissioning mechanisms; consider eliminating flat taxes for business households and providing tax exemptions during the initial period of conversion to enterprises; support the formation of 1,000 medium-sized enterprises; and more. Given the shortcomings in implementing the regulation of not criminalising economic relations in recent years, the drafting team has also worked with relevant parties to clarify this content, aiming to propose effective solutions to help businesses and entrepreneurs invest, produce and trade with confidence.

Dr Nguyen Duc Kien, former Head of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Group, analysed: Since the issuance of Resolution 09 in 2011 and Resolution 10 in 2017, the private sector has risen strongly, gradually becoming an important driving force in national economic growth.

However, this sector’s development has not met expectations, partly due to issues implementing the resolutions. Therefore, implementing the new resolution needs innovation, focusing on effectiveness rather than formality. The resolution’s objectives must be concretised into annual targets, with regular reports to the National Assembly to enable Party agencies and the people to monitor progress. Establishing too many steering bodies and overlapping structures simultaneously without specific accountability should be avoided.

Cung proposed assigning the Central Policy and Strategy Commission as the standing body, coordinating with the National Assembly and government agencies to monitor, evaluate and periodically report to the Politburo on the resolution’s implementation. The Commission’s standing, dedicated unit must gather independent staff and experts with sufficient capacity to identify, analyse and propose solutions for weaknesses and shortcomings in the resolution’s implementation. This mechanism will create pressure for the entire political system to engage in making the resolution dynamic, promoting private sector development.

Resources within the population remain substantial. The private economy is the people’s economy, from the people and by the people. No resource can replace or surpass resources from the people, so the private sector’s potential is limitless. The entrepreneurial spirit and aspiration to contribute flow like an underground current, especially as Vietnam urgently implements economic renewal at this turning point, helping the private sector to flourish and create new miracles.