Vietnam's GDP Grows 8.18% in First Half, Its Best in 15 Years — and Hanoi Still Wants Double Digits
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's GDP Grows 8.18% in First Half, Its Best in 15 Years — and Hanoi Still Wants Double Digits]
Vietnam's statistics office released its first-half numbers in early July: GDP grew 8.18% year on year, with the second quarter running faster than the first. A Ministry of Finance report submitted to the government in mid-July put the number in context — this is Vietnam's best first half since 2011. The timing is hard to miss. Just days earlier, the World Bank had moved Vietnam into its upper-middle-income group.
Industry and services each contributed close to half of the growth, with agriculture making up the small remainder. Manufacturing alone accounted for a third — still the economy's main engine. Consumption held up too: retail and consumer service revenue rose more than 10%, and international arrivals were up about 15%.
The foreign investment figures were more striking. Registered FDI jumped roughly 60% from a year earlier — in six months, Vietnam attracted nearly as much as in all of 2025. Singapore alone accounted for over 40% of newly licensed capital, followed by South Korea, Japan, and China. Pledges are promises; disbursement is what counts. Actual disbursed FDI reached about USD 13 billion, the highest first-half figure in five years. Nguyễn Thị Hương, head of the statistics office, read it as a sign that global turbulence has strengthened, not weakened, investor confidence in Vietnam.
The same report has a less flattering side. A year ago, Vietnam ran a first-half trade surplus of nearly USD 8 billion. This year, that swung to a USD 16.6 billion deficit, with imports growing far faster than exports. Officials point to swings in oil and electronic component prices, companies stocking up on machinery and materials, and a new factor: equipment imports for data centers and AI projects. There is an irony here — the deficit has been good for customs revenue. Tariffs and import-stage VAT are collected at the border, so as imports surged, so did tax receipts.
Signals from the business sector are more mixed. Nearly 170,000 companies were newly registered or returned to operation in the first half, while more than 150,000 exited the market. The total is still growing, but exits are increasing faster than entries. Average CPI rose 4.38%, inside the government's target of around 4.5% but with little room to spare, and credit growth was slower than a year earlier. The Ministry of Finance's own list of concerns reads much the same: persistent inflation pressure, slow public investment disbursement, a wide trade deficit, plus drought and saltwater intrusion threatening agriculture.
None of that has changed the target. In late June, the government updated its full-year growth plan: at least 10% for the year, which requires 11.9% in the second half. Ministries and provinces, in their own estimates, put the full year at just 8.7% — the gap is meant to be closed by policy. The Ministry of Finance says the second half will follow eight priority task groups set by General Secretary and President Tô Lâm, covering fiscal and monetary coordination, tax relief for businesses, and stable interest and exchange rates. The tools are there: budget revenue has already reached nearly two-thirds of the annual plan, while public investment has disbursed only a bit over a third — most of it still has to go out the door in the next six months. That is pressure, and it is also the most direct source of growth Hanoi has left.
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