Vietnam
An 8.18% first half is Vietnam's best in 15 years, and FDI pledges nearly matched all of last year in six months. But a trade balance that was in surplus a year ago has swung to a USD 16.6 billion deficit — and the government's answer is to aim even higher.
Vietnam
It sits on the most expensive land in Ho Chi Minh City, its cafes are technically illegal, and eviction notices went out back in 2016. Nearly a decade later, the shops are still open. What protects the building may simply be the tourists climbing its stairs every day.
Vietnam
Behind the fast growth, Q4 flashed a warning: prices climbed while volume shrank. Platforms ended subsidies and raised fees, sellers passed costs into prices, and shoppers bought less. Vietnam's e-commerce is leaving the era when online always meant cheaper.
Vietnam
In a single week, Vietnam Airlines opened its first Amsterdam route, private carriers doubled down on fleets, and three new airlines lined up to enter. The demand is real — but it is almost all international, and the supply side has three chokepoints.
Vietnam
Foreigners can buy property in Vietnam — but never the land. What you get is a 50-year ownership certificate known as the pink book. Understand that, and every other rule makes sense, from the 30% quota to the ban on condotels to what happens when the term runs out.
Vietnam
Inspired by an iridescent sky over Saigon, this Vietnamese table lamp swept design media in April and won New York's People's Choice award in May. Behind it, a Vietnamese contract factory hatching a brand of its own.
Vietnam
Most visitors to Ho Chi Minh City know its book street. Fewer know Hanoi has one too — built on a former mass grave, once home to the 'Hell Market.' One turned ten as a city icon selling fewer and fewer books; the other nearly died before a revival. What should a book street sell next?
In-depth analysis of Vietnam's politics, economy, business, technology, and culture.
The World Bank moved Vietnam into its upper-middle-income group on July 1, with GNI per capita at $4,970, a climb 40 years in the making. But growth trails Hanoi's 10% target, trade has flipped to deficit, and the middle-income trap that caught Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia looms ahead.
Posts claiming every traveler entering Vietnam from July 1 must file a health declaration misread the new decree. No declaration has been activated for any disease, nothing needs to be filed today, and the old declaration site circulating online is no longer official.
Vietnam's aviation authority rolls out new power bank rules from July 1, 2026. It's not a ban. Lithium power banks now fall under one nationwide standard: carry-on only, two per passenger, no use or charging onboard. The trigger was a string of in-flight battery fires.
A 45-day sweep in Ho Chi Minh City checked more than 1,600 lodgings and turned up nearly 300 foreigners breaking the law. Bac Ninh raided a 23-person scam base. The target isn't overstaying tourists — it's cross-border online fraud, and two new decrees just handed police the tools to hit hard.
Hanoi broke ground on five metro lines at once, more than 300km in total, due in four years. The number to watch isn't the budget — it's three changes in how it's being built.
From July, Vietnamese airlines must refund and compensate passengers for long delays. But the money only flows when the delay is the airline's own fault — so can VietJet, famous for late flights, slip through?
Vietnam's weather agency puts the odds of a "very strong" El Niño at 60-65%, with the drought zone centered on the Central Highlands — the engine of the world's largest robusta supply.
Vietnam's Resolution 10 shifts FDI from quantity to quality. The capital target barely moved — what changed is the incentive logic: from granted on arrival to paid on performance, with clawbacks. An opening for tech-bearing investors, a warning for pure assembly.
2026 is the Year of the Horse. Saigon's century-old Phú Thọ Racetrack — once Asia's largest — is being turned into a park. Here's the story it leaves behind.
The UN cybercrime convention will be signed in Hanoi — the first international treaty ever named after Vietnam.
Professor Hoang Chi Thien became the first Vietnamese scholar to win Taiwan's Young Astronomer Lectureship Award.
[Leaving the West, Returning to the Place Their Parents Left — The Việt Kiều Reverse Migration] Half a million Vietnamese return from overseas every year. Of those, 25,000 choose to stay. They're not tourists. They're not just visiting family. They're reverse migrants — raised and