Vietnam

Vietnam is the third-largest consumer (with a large digitally active consumer) market in Southeast Asia. The country has a sizable labor force and favorable demographics – the population has reached 97 million, of which 70% are under 35 years of age. In 2018, Google and Temasek described Vietnam’s internet economy as akin to “a dragon being unleashed,” predicting a value of US$33 billion in 2025. Hamada Kazuyuki, in his ‘Future Power’ book, predicted that Vietnam would be one of the world’s top 20 economies by 2030. In 2020, the Vietnamese government released the national digital transformation strategy from 2020 – 2030 to develop more than 1.5 million digital workers and 100,000 digital companies by 2030. More investment companies and initiatives are referring to Vietnam as the next destination after Indonesia in SEA. The main challenges impacting this growth potential include:

Global mindset and entrepreneurship skills
While local startups create very good products technology-wise, there is a lack of skills in product-market fit mindset and entrepreneurship. Although Vietnam is in the top three in Southeast Asia in terms of number of startups, not many of these enterprises are equipped with the necessary skills to develop a sustainable business model, or to pitch for investment. As a result, many local startups have limited opportunities to connect with the regional ecosystem.

Fragmented ecosystem
Despite increasing support from the Government, the ecosystem still operates in silos. To increase efficiency, there needs to be more cooperation among different stakeholders, broader institutional capacity building, and support from the Government in terms of incentives, accessible financial resources and simplified Government administration.