Lê Trung Hiếu, Deputy Director of the Hà Nội Department of Finance. VNA/VNS Photo

Hà Nội is aiming for double-digit GRDP growth for several consecutive years. According to Lê Trung Hiếu, Deputy Director of the Hà Nội Department of Finance, foreign direct investment will be an important resource in achieving this goal. However, success can no longer be measured simply by the number of projects or the total amount of registered capital, but by the technology, knowledge, linkages and real value retained within the capital’s economy.

The goal of double-digit GRDP growth may seem rather remote from people’s daily lives. How do you see the connection between the two?

The goal of achieving double-digit GRDP growth for several consecutive years has been widely discussed in recent days, but it may still feel quite distant to most people.

Office workers do not live by growth rates, but by their monthly salaries. A person running a noodle shop or café down the street is not concerned about how many percentage points GRDP has increased. What matters to them is whether they have more customers today than yesterday. A young family does not measure its life through macroeconomic indicators, but through school fees, rent, utility bills and whether a morning bowl of phở remains affordable.

Interestingly, however, these seemingly ordinary concerns are closely connected to a concept that may appear far removed from everyday life: foreign direct investment, or FDI.

If Hà Nội wants to achieve double-digit growth while improving people’s quality of life, the issue is no longer simply how to attract more foreign capital. It is about attracting the right capital, the right investors and the right value they can bring.

That is also the central spirit of Resolution No 10-NQ/TW, issued in 2026, on reforming policies for attracting and using foreign investment in the new stage of development.

How does Resolution 10 change the way the effectiveness of an FDI project is assessed?

One notable feature of Resolution 10 is that it moves away from the conventional approach to FDI adopted for many years.

In the past, success was often measured by the number of projects and the total amount of registered capital. Today, the yardstick has changed.

A billion-dollar project will no longer be highly valued simply because of the size of its investment. It must answer more important questions. Does it bring advanced technology? Will it establish a research and development centre? Will it employ highly skilled workers? Will it create opportunities for Vietnamese businesses to join its supply chain? Ultimately, will it enable local people and workers to benefit more?

This represents a fundamental shift. Instead of “rolling out the red carpet” for every project, Việt Nam is seeking to select investors that can generate real added value.

Domestic businesses must no longer remain on the sidelines, but become partners in development. Investment support should no longer depend only on land or tax incentives, but increasingly be tied to outcomes, innovation, technology transfer and labour productivity.

Against this backdrop, Hà Nội is perhaps one of the localities that needs Resolution 10 the most.

Unlike many provinces and cities that still have considerable room to develop labour-intensive industrial parks, Hà Nội is entering an entirely new stage of development. Land is increasingly limited, while pressure on transport, the environment and population continues to grow.

The city can no longer compete through cheap labour or land incentives. If it wants to grow rapidly while remaining sustainable, Hà Nội has only one path: development driven by knowledge, technology and productivity.

Do you believe Hà Nội has yet to fully realise the value of foreign investment?

For many years, a considerable number of FDI enterprises have operated as relatively isolated “islands”.

Localisation rates remain low in many sectors. Vietnamese businesses face great difficulty in joining supply chains, not only because of limitations in capital or technology, but also because they have yet to meet international standards in governance, quality, traceability, research capacity and reliable supply.

Meanwhile, policies intended to connect FDI enterprises with domestic businesses have not been strong enough to generate genuine spillover effects.

As a result, the added value retained within Hà Nội’s economy has not met expectations. The city has attracted more investment, but the technological capacity of domestic businesses has not improved correspondingly. More modern buildings have been constructed, but many small and medium-sized enterprises remain outside the game. More jobs have been created, but there are still not enough high-value jobs to produce a breakthrough in labour productivity.

At the same time, every major project can place considerable pressure on urban infrastructure. Traffic congestion, environmental pollution, rapidly rising property prices and mounting pressure on public services are all issues that Hà Nội must address if it is to pursue sustainable development.

Some argue that Hà Nội should “roll out the red carpet” for as many projects as possible and seek to attract every billion-dollar investment it can. What is your view?

At first, this may sound like a simple question. But the more I consider it, the more I believe that it is precisely the question that the Politburo’s Resolution No 10-NQ/TW seeks to answer.

For a long time, Hà Nội and many other localities regarded total registered FDI as a measure of success. At the end of each year, the locality that had attracted the most billions of dollars was often considered the winner.

These figures appeared in reports and at investment promotion conferences, becoming a source of pride for many localities.

But once the applause following the signing ceremonies had died down, another question emerged: how much of the value represented by those billions of dollars actually remained within the local economy?

A factory may generate enormous export turnover. However, if most of its machinery and components are imported, its core technology remains under the control of its parent company and domestic businesses participate only in low-value stages of production, the benefits retained within the economy will not be commensurate with the incentives granted to the project.

That is precisely why Resolution 10 introduces a fundamental change in the way foreign investment is approached.

The objective is no longer to attract as much capital as possible, but to select investment capable of generating high added value, promoting innovation and technology transfer, developing human resources and strengthening the capacity of Vietnamese businesses.

In other words, what kind of investors is Hà Nội seeking in this new stage of development?

Hà Nội no longer needs investors that simply bring capital to build factories, take advantage of lower costs and then relocate elsewhere when conditions change.

The capital is looking for corporations that regard Hà Nội as a strategic base where they can establish research and development centres, design centres and data centres, train human resources and develop new products for regional and global markets.

What Hà Nội needs is not simply investment of substantial scale, but “seeds” capable of growing into an entire technology ecosystem in the future.

What questions should the city ask when approaching and assessing an investor?

To secure those “seeds”, the city must first change the questions it asks investors.

The first question should not be: “How much will you invest?”

It should be: “What technology will you bring to Hà Nội?”

That should be followed by longer-term questions. Could Hà Nội become home to the corporation’s R&D centre? Will the capital’s universities have opportunities to participate in research partnerships? Will Vietnamese engineers be trained to master the technology, or will they merely perform basic tasks? Can domestic businesses become suppliers, or will they continue to remain outside the value chain?

What advantages does Hà Nội possess in the competition to attract high-quality FDI projects?

Hà Nội has many advantages in this competition.

The capital has the country’s largest concentration of universities, research institutes, top-level hospitals, experts, scientists and innovative businesses. Few cities in the region bring together policymaking bodies, education and training institutions, scientific research facilities and a large consumer market in the way Hà Nội does.

An idea can be developed in a laboratory, tested by a business, supported by an improved regulatory framework and quickly brought to market. This is an advantage that cannot be created overnight.

However, such advantages can become a genuine strength only when they are translated into an attractive investment environment.

To retain talent, Hà Nội needs strong technology companies.

To develop strong technology companies, it must attract strategic investors.

To attract strategic investors, the municipal administration must create an environment in which procedures are processed in days rather than months, data replaces paper documents, partnership replaces a purely administrative mindset and business confidence is built on transparent and consistent policies.

This is also what Resolution 10 requires of the State management apparatus.

Many foreign investors have said that what concerns them is not the scale of an investment, but policy uncertainty and excessively lengthy procedures.

In today’s competition for high-quality FDI, the speed at which issues are resolved can sometimes be more valuable than an entire package of financial incentives.

This is particularly true for Hà Nội. In fields such as artificial intelligence, semiconductors, biotechnology and big data, a one-year delay could mean missing an entire cycle of technological development.

Does being selective also mean that the city must be prepared to reject certain projects, including some with substantial investment capital?

Hà Nội must have the resolve to reject projects that use outdated technology, consume excessive resources, generate little added value or merely seek short-term incentives.

Every rejection may mean losing an attractive figure in an immediate report, but it can also protect the city’s development potential for decades to come.

An investment project does not merely generate growth today. It also shapes the economic structure of tomorrow.

There may come a time when Hà Nội no longer leads the country in total registered FDI. However, if every dollar invested produces more technology, enables more Vietnamese businesses to join supply chains, helps more engineers master technology and creates more high-value jobs, that will be the true measure of success.

In your view, what should be the ultimate measure of Hà Nội’s effectiveness in attracting and using FDI?

Ultimately, the success of Resolution 10 will not be measured by the number of billions of US dollars stated on investment certificates.

It will be measured by the number of Vietnamese businesses joining global supply chains, the number of patents created in Hà Nội, the number of research centres established, the number of engineers mastering core technologies and, most importantly, by people’s everyday sense that there are more job opportunities, incomes are improving and their quality of life is changing for the better.

When that happens, the question “How many billions of dollars in FDI has Hà Nội attracted?” will no longer be the most important one.

The more important question will be: how much value has Hà Nội retained from those billions of dollars?

That is the pressing question Resolution 10 poses for the capital as it pursues rapid growth that must also be high-quality, distinctive and capable of delivering a better life for every resident. VNS