Focus: Entering Borderless Finance: The launch of the Global On-Chain Economy Alliance (GOE Alliance) at the Autumn Economic Forum 2025, witnessed by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Secretary of the HCMC Party Committee Tran Luu Quang, and numerous high-ranking national and international leaders, marks a pivotal and rare turning point in the formation of Vietnam’s International Financial Center, located in HCMC (IFC-HCM).
Inside Vietnam
A Yellow Light For Credit Growth: As of now, the 2025 target of more than 16% credit growth is almost certainly within reach. Even so, the picture is not entirely bright.
To Sync With High-Tech FDI: Foreign direct investment (FDI) has generated many jobs and boosted export turnover, but the spillover effects on the capabilities and manufacturing technologies of domestic firms remain faint. In the coming period, Vietnam needs to approach high-tech FDI with a “two-way partnership”: FDI brings standards, markets, and scale; domestic enterprises gradually build up technological capabilities. This is the viewpoint of Dr. Ha Thi Cam Van, Senior Program Manager of Economics at RMIT University Vietnam, and Dr. Nguyen Chau Trinh, Lecturer in Economics at RMIT University Vietnam, presented in a recently published study on FDI investment in Vietnam.
Aggressive Capital Increases: Behind the heated race to boost charter capital lies mounting pressure to meet new capital adequacy ratio standards, comply with international financial reporting standards (IFRS), and expand credit-growth capacity in the years ahead.
Business
Industrial, Energy Stocks In Spotlight: The VN-Index rebounded to 1,700 points on the first trading day of December. Although leading stocks are showing signs of losing steam, capital flows appear to be shifting toward opportunities with stronger long-term fundamentals. Industrial and energy stocks, in particular, have emerged as key focal points.
Carbon Costs Start To Matter: Since early this year, around 150 of the country’s largest emitters, responsible for roughly 40% of national emissions, have been in the compliance phase of Vietnam’s carbon market. Once emission allowances are allocated and carry market value, CO2 effectively becomes a new line item in company expenses, directly influencing profit margins and investment decisions.
Living
Baking A Life Together: HCMC was not a place either of them once called home — not for Dinh Thuy Linh, who grew up in the hilly city of Dalat, nor for Tsuji Kota, a Japanese expat drifting through from Chiba. Yet it was here, in a city that hums, swerves and rarely sits still, that their paths converged and a quiet story began to take shape. Speaking to The Saigon Times, the couple reflects on the life they now share and the unlikely decision to anchor a cake shop in Vietnam’s most fast-moving metropolis.
Preparing For New Crops: In early December 2025, as the floodwaters gradually receded from the rice fields in My Quy Commune, Tay Ninh Province, the atmosphere shifted from quiet to lively. The sounds of water pumps and tractors, along with the sight of farmers covered in silt, signaled a busy rush to prepare for the new season: the Winter-Spring rice crop.
Travel
Multicolored Landscapes On Bac Son Valley: Bac Son Valley in Lang Son Province has become a popular destination in Vietnam’s northeast, famous for its patchwork of rice fields, limestone mountains, and ethnic villages.
Ban Flower Salad Highlights Culinary Traditions: Ban flower salad, a seasonal specialty of the Thai ethnic community in Vietnam’s northwest region, is known for its blend of sour, spicy, bitter, sweet, and nutty flavors. The dish appears only once a year, when ban flowers bloom across the mountains in late February of the lunar calendar.
