Shuli Ren, Columnist

Vietnam Is Growing at 7%. Hanoi Can Do a Lot Better.

Frustratingly slow infrastructure buildup puts catching up to China out of its grasp.

August 18, 2022 at 10:00 PM UTC

Shuli Ren is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asian markets. A former investment banker, she was a markets reporter for Barron’s. She is a CFA charterholder.

Hanoi traffic.
Photographer: Bloomberg/Bloomberg

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Vietnam is buzzing. Global companies from Samsung Electronics Co. to Lego Group are opening mega factories there. Apple Inc. is in talks to make Apple Watches and MacBooks in the Southeast Asian nation for the first time, while the tech giant’s Taiwanese and Chinese suppliers jostle in a bidding war for local talent.

But Vietnam can do a lot better. The government is only aiming for 7% growth this year — meager compared to the double-digit expansions China registered during its export-driven boom in the early 2000s. Even though there have been talks of shifting supply chains, progress in moving mass production of more advanced tech products to Vietnam has been slow.