By Prof Trần Thọ Đạt, National Economics University

In the last two years, policy and legislation have moved at a much quicker pace in science and technology (Resolution 57-NQ/TW), private sector development (Resolution 68-NQ/TW), legal reform (Resolution 66-NQ/TW), and energy and international integration.

The first three stages of reform - from national vision to government policy to law - have clearly accelerated. The main weakness is now the fourth stage. As Professor Trần Văn Thọ (Waseda University) describes, reform has four stages: vision, policy, law, and implementation through ministries, provinces and public agencies. Viêh Nam was stuck for a long time in the middle of this chain. Now the bottleneck has moved to the last stage.

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 conversion gap

The evidence is in our own governance indicators for 2025. PAR Index data from the Ministry of Home Affairs shows the average provincial administrative-procedure reform score reached 98.14 per cent, the highest ever. Yet the impact score - whether people and the economy actually benefit - was only 83.96 per cent, and citizen satisfaction (SIPAS) was 83.09 per cent. That 15-point gap between process compliance and real outcome is not a statistical artifact. It is idle projects, higher finance costs, and delayed jobs.

PCI 2025, now using PCI 2.0 methodology with 3,546 domestic private firms, 586 FDI firms and 1,001 household businesses, confirms the shift in bottlenecks. The problem is no longer a single form. 60.2 per cent of firms report difficulty finding customers, 75.5 per cent cannot borrow without collateral, only 6-8 per cent can regularly forecast policy changes, 24.3 per cent struggle to access legal information, and 26 per cent still incur informal costs when applying for business licences.

PCI 2025, now using PCI 2.0 methodology with 3,546 domestic private firms, 586 FDI firms and 1,001 household businesses, confirms the shift in bottlenecks. The problem is no longer a single form. 60.2 per cent of firms report difficulty finding customers, 75.5 per cent cannot borrow without collateral, only 6-8 per cent can regularly forecast policy changes, 24.3 per cent struggle to access legal information, and 26 per cent still incur informal costs when applying for business licences.

This is why implementation has become a macroeconomic variable. Administrative delay functions like an extra tax on investment, but it does not appear in the budget. A project delayed two years does not simply start two years later. Its IRR falls, technology becomes outdated, and borrowing costs rise.

Our reform history helps explain this. Since Đổi Mới (Renewal), Vietnam followed what Emeritus Professor Martin Hayden described as "making haste slowly" - urgent in direction, cautious in steps, testing new rules in one sector before scaling. That preserved macro and social stability while moving from a low-income agricultural economy to a manufacturing and export-oriented economy.

Make haste carefully but somewhat more quickly

At the Vietnam Update at ANU in September 2026, Professor Hayden suggested a shift to "make haste carefully but somewhat more quickly." The economics have changed. When countries compete for semiconductors, clean energy and digital services, and when green standards become market access conditions, a long administrative window means a missed opportunity.

Vietnam Update Conference 2026 at Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University on September 4, 2026. Photo courtesy of Prof Trần Thọ Đạt

Where does the system get stuck? Often between laws. An official deciding a case is caught between Investment Law pointing one way and Land, Public Assets, Construction or Environmental Law pointing another. If responsibility is personal but authority is unclear and cross-agency answers differ, delay becomes the safest choice.

Four changes would help, drawn from our PAR, SIPAS and PCI experience:

1. Judge the civil service more on results, not just procedure. Current evaluation rewards on-time files and complete records. It should also track actual execution, private capital mobilised, and whether the factory opened. Officials who act promptly in good faith need clear protection: written evidence, public interest considered, conflict of interest disclosed. This is not protection for negligence or private gain. Without it, calls for more activism have little effect.

2. Keep central ministries focused on standards, resources and performance monitoring, while giving local authorities more room to deliver. The two-tier local government since July 1, 2025 - 34 provinces and 3,321 communes, down 66.91 per cent - already created larger governance space. More local discretion must come with transparent reporting and ex-post review, not more prior approvals.

3. Treat legal conflicts as a systemic task. The most damaging problems happen between statutes where no ministry is fully responsible. Investment, land, public assets, construction and environment laws should be reviewed as one system, with a joint binding interpretation issued within a fixed period.

4. Build digital government around case completion, not just e-forms. From July 1 to September 15, 2025, 3,139 public service centers handled 6.6 million files, 91 per cent on time, with over 3 million online payments worth VNĐ1.7 trillion. Maintaining service during restructuring is notable, but on-time rate alone does not measure first-time-right resolution, travel cost, or access. Government databases must share verified information, assign one owner per case, and show where a file stops and why.

Faster implementation does not mean weakening safeguards. It means precise authority, less legal contradiction, better data, and accountability for end results. Việt Nam has shown it can turn political priorities into laws much more quickly than before. The next test is shortening the distance from law to action. At this stage, implementation is not administrative housekeeping. It is growth policy. VNS