By Prof Trần Thọ Đạt, National Economics University

Over the last four decades, Việt Nam’s reform journey has been marked by a distinctive balance between urgency and prudence. The phrase “making haste, slowly”, coined and elaborated by Emeritus Professor Martin Hayden, has become emblematic of Việt Nam’s approach to structural transformation since the mid-1980s.

This strategy articulated a nuanced statecraft characterised by determined reform tempered with cautious pacing, deliberately avoiding rapid upheaval that could destabilise political institutions, economic gains and the social fabric.

Yet, as Việt Nam confronts today’s hyper-competitive, rapidly evolving global economy, this approach, though historically successful, faces mounting challenges.

At the Vietnam Update Conference at the Australian National University in Canberra in September, Prof Hayden advanced this narrative with a judiciously recalibrated directive: “make haste carefully, but somewhat more quickly.”

This refined imperative recognises that while caution remains indispensable, the cost of delay in the current geopolitical and technological landscape is simply too great.

Việt Nam’s opening decades required measured, incremental reform to nurture stability and build foundational institutions. Today, however, the same mechanisms that ensured success risk becoming impediments if the pace is not accelerated thoughtfully but decisively. The success of its next developmental chapter depends fundamentally on narrowing a critical implementation gap, ensuring that the velocity of policy formulation is matched by operational execution on the ground.

Việt Nam’s approach grew out of necessity and pragmatism. The country undertook a profound transition from a rigid centrally planned economy to a market-oriented one, opening itself up to global trade and investment. This was no minor policy adjustment, it was a seismic restructuring of economic, institutional and social arrangements.

Conscious that rapid, untested reforms could precipitate economic shocks or social unrest, Việt Nam’s leadership executed an experimentalist reform process. New policies and laws were applied gradually, often piloted in select regions before national adoption. Administrators closely monitored outcomes and adjusted accordingly.

This stepwise strategy allowed Việt Nam to maintain macroeconomic stability, avoid destabilising social dislocation and build consensus across government, enterprises and society.

This approach proved effective, propelling Việt Nam from a low-income, largely agrarian economy to an emerging industrial force. Over 40 million people escaped poverty and Việt Nam became a key manufacturing hub supplying global markets. The institutions and regulatory frameworks necessary for economic growth slowly solidified, while incremental reforms minimised political and administrative risks.

Nhổn - Hà Nội Station elavated railway section running through Kim Mã - Láng Hạ streets. Việt Nam has been transformed from a low-income, largely agrarian economy to an emerging industrial force. VNS Photo Trương Vị

 The contemporary context

Despite its early success, the “making haste slowly” paradigm now collides with new realities. The international environment has evolved into an intense ecosystem driven by accelerating technological innovation, global supply chain realignments, decarbonisation imperatives and contestation for strategic foreign investment. These forces compress time horizons and shorten windows of opportunity.

In this context, bureaucratic delays, procedural obstructions and incrementalism that once served Việt Nam well now risk rendering the country less competitive. Prolonged lags between policy intent and tangible economic outcomes mean stalled investments, frustrated entrepreneurs and irretrievable market opportunities.

Việt Nam’s economic ambitions cannot be realised under the drag of protracted administrative execution. Time has become a scarce and precious strategic asset. Delay is not merely an inconvenience; it imposes a serious development tax, compromising both growth and innovation.

Hence, Hayden’s recalibrated call signals a recognition that accelerating execution speed, without sacrificing oversight or stability, must now be a cornerstone of Việt Nam’s reform philosophy.

To grasp where issues emerge, it is instructive to conceptualise Việt Nam’s institutional reform process as a four-phase pipeline, a framework articulated by Emeritus Professor Trần Văn Thọ, Wasada University, Japan. 

Phase A is strategic vision, where political leadership articulates high-level orientations and long-term objectives; Phase B is executive planning, in which ministries develop concrete policies aligned with the political vision; Phase C is legislative codification, where policies are translated into relevant documentation through legislative and executive channels; and Phase D is operational execution, in which local authorities, agencies and frontline institutions implement policies on the ground.

The effectiveness and speed with which ideas traverse these four phases determine how successfully governance produces public value.

Historically, Việt Nam’s key challenges centred on transforming strategy into workable laws. Ambitious goals often resulted in vague or incomplete regulations, hindered by bureaucratic fragmentation and inter-ministerial conflicts. Legislative drafting was a protracted endeavour, frequently stretching over several parliamentary sessions.

However, the past two years have seen extraordinary progress in this front-end phase. Under determined central leadership, Việt Nam has accelerated the translation of political resolutions into lawmaking. Politburo documents [resolutions issued by the Communist Party of Việt Nam], covering critical sectors such as science and technology, integration, legal reform, private sector development, energy security, education, healthcare and state enterprise restructuring, have been adopted with unprecedented speed and coherence.

Executive and legislative bodies have drastically shortened drafting timelines. The legal framework necessary for a modern, technologically sophisticated market economy is being constructed rapidly and comprehensively. This demonstrates that Việt Nam can make haste in setting strategic direction and codifying it into law.

Persistent bottleneck

Yet despite breakthroughs in policy and legislation, the final and most crucial stage of operational execution lags significantly. This phenomenon is what can be termed the “conversion gap”: the disparity between formal legal compliance and the delivery of real socioeconomic outcomes.

Provincial administrative reforms, judged on paper or through digital compliance metrics, claim near-perfect scores, often exceeding 98 per cent. Officially, procedures are simplified, computerised and standardised. But when evaluated from a business satisfaction perspective or measured by tangible impacts on economic dynamism, these scores fall sharply into the low 80s.

This dissonance reveals a structural disconnect in governance. Compliance-focused administration rewards checking boxes, meeting deadlines and processing paperwork, but does not guarantee effective facilitation of business activities or project implementation.

On the ground, private enterprises and investors repeatedly confront operational barriers: protracted land acquisition due to contradictory legal interpretations, stalled commercial projects with ambiguous asset valuation rules and administrative inertia stemming from officials’ reluctance to act in uncertain legal environments. Fear of personal liability and overlapping jurisdiction among departments cause repeated handoffs and delays.

In essence, passing laws grants authority but does not build the confidence or operational capacity to act decisively. When confronted with a patchwork of overlapping, sometimes contradictory regulations across land management, construction, public finance and environmental laws, local staff often choose delay as the safest course.

The result is a paradox: formal compliance thrives while substantive execution falters. This disconnect undermines investor confidence, squanders capital and jeopardises Việt Nam’s development momentum.

If Việt Nam is to meet its 2030 industrialisation targets and 2045 high-income goals, an unprecedented pace of structural upgrading and productivity growth is necessary. Delays in execution translate into missed opportunities that competitors may seize, lost foreign investment and stifled domestic innovation.

Recognising this, Việt Nam’s economic leadership faces a clear imperative: reform administrative processes to align execution speed with the accelerated pace of policy formulation.

Unlocking execution velocity

To bridge this implementation divide, four fundamental transformations in governance are necessary.

Firstly, Việt Nam’s civil service evaluation must evolve beyond measuring adherence to administrative procedures towards gauging socioeconomic outcomes. Officials and agencies should be accountable for concrete results: the number of completed projects, jobs created, private capital mobilised and business growth enabled.

Key performance indicators must penalise bureaucratic procrastination and reward proactive decision-making. Importantly, the state must introduce explicit legal safeguards and operational safe harbours to protect officials who take innovative and timely actions in regulatory grey zones in good faith. This shift encourages a culture that prioritises facilitation and impact over formality.

Secondly, central ministries ought to move away from micromanaging individual projects or mandating prior approvals and instead focus on strategic oversight, defining priorities, setting clear performance standards, allocating resources and enforcing accountability after implementation.

Granting local governments, regional economic hubs and frontline public institutions genuine operational autonomy enables faster on-the-ground decisions, encourages innovation and helps tailor approaches to regional conditions.

Thirdly, one of the root causes of administrative deadlock is legal fragmentation. Overlapping or conflicting statutory provisions across ministries create paralysis at the point of execution.

To facilitate confident, swift action, Việt Nam must undertake systematic harmonisation of interrelated laws during Phase C. This means reconciling investment, land, public asset, environmental and other regulatory frameworks to eliminate inconsistencies and reduce interpretive ambiguity. Only a coherent legal architecture can provide the clarity and certainty required to reduce operational hesitation.

Finally, digitisation to date has largely been about transferring paper forms to electronic systems, a vital but limited advance.

True digital transformation requires integrated data platforms linking various government departments. These platforms can automate routine approvals, remove duplicate documentation, streamline cross-agency verification processes and enable real-time monitoring of impediments.

Such data-driven governance will allow authorities to intervene proactively, refining administrative processes dynamically and improving responsiveness to the needs of investors and citizens.

Việt Nam’s reform journey has put it at a historic crossroads. The country has demonstrated a remarkable capacity to design and enact policies and laws rapidly, far exceeding previous achievements. This political and institutional agility is now a national asset.

Yet, without corresponding improvements in administrative implementation at the local level, these achievements risk becoming symbolic rather than transformative. The meaningful realisation of long-term goals depends entirely on building execution capacity that can match legislative speed and political ambition.

“Making haste carefully, but somewhat more quickly”, therefore, becomes a strategic art form for Việt Nam’s leaders to craft visions at pace and to realise them with equal determination and efficiency.

By closing this implementation gap, Việt Nam can unleash its considerable domestic productive potential, elevate its institutional quality and secure its place among the world’s most dynamic and prosperous economies. VNS