Vietnam’s bid to become a start-up nation

On April 5, Vietnam approved its first National Strategy for Innovative Entrepreneurship. The strategy sharpens the country’s economic ambition: to make innovative entrepreneurship — driven by science and technology — a key engine of national development. It frames startup creation not just as a driver of growth and jobs, but as a tool for strategic autonomy and industrial transformation, positioning Vietnam in the regional and global race for competitiveness.

It reflects a conviction now firmly established at the highest levels of government: Vietnam’s future economic performance will depend less on low-cost, export-oriented manufacturing and foreign direct investment, and more on its ability to generate, commercialise and scale up new technologies. In this sense, it follows on from the four strategic resolutions adopted between 2024 and 2025 under the leadership of Tô Lâm, Vietnam’s 13th and current president.

These “four pillars” form the backbone of the country’s new economic development strategy. The first, Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW of December 22, 2024, focuses on science, technology, innovation, and digital transformation; it sets a target of raising R&D spending to 2% of GDP by 2030, with the aim of placing Vietnam among the top three Southeast Asian countries for innovation. The second, Resolution No. 59-NQ/TW of January 24, 2025, makes international integration into global value chains a strategic priority — shifting Vietnam’s identity from mere factory of the world to innovative and creative nation. The third, Resolution No. 66-NQ/TW of April 30, 2025, addresses the development and improvement of legal and legislative frameworks, particularly to fix long-standing institutional shortcomings. Finally, Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW of May 4, 2025, is dedicated to growing the private sector, now officially recognised as “the most important driver of the national economy,” with a target of 2 million private businesses accounting for 55 to 58% of GDP by 2030.

It’s against this backdrop that the National Strategy for Innovative Entrepreneurship under Resolution 86/NQ-CP takes shape — and its targets are nothing if not bold. By 2030, Vietnam aims to have at least 10,000 innovative startups, produce at least five unicorns, and build a venture capital market worth $1.5 billion. The country also wants to rank among the top 40 on the Global Innovation Index and break into the world’s top 45 startup ecosystems. Looking further ahead to 2045, the ambition is even greater: a top 30 global ranking for innovation, 100 innovative companies valued at $100 million or more, and a venture capital market worth at least $10 billion.

But the strategy isn’t just about hitting numbers. It lays out an action plan built on eight major workstreams, organised under four thematic pillars, and involving a wide range of stakeholders: the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the State Bank of Vietnam, and the country’s universities.

The first pillar focuses on education, awareness, and building a culture of innovative entrepreneurship across society. Concretely, this means fostering an entrepreneurial mindset — particularly by encouraging universities to develop dedicated programs, especially for students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), and to launch PhD programs in innovation and entrepreneurship. Universities are also being pushed to embrace an entrepreneurial model that actively supports the development of tech startups on campus. This ties in with Resolution No. 71-NQ/TW of August 2025, which set out to modernise higher education across Vietnam.

The second pillar covers infrastructure and support for entrepreneurship. This includes supporting the creation of physical spaces and innovation hubs, developing digital platforms and databases, and strengthening intellectual property protection and commercialisation systems. The action items here are wide-ranging: introducing favorable visa policies to attract foreign entrepreneurs, experts, investors, and venture capital fund managers; streamlining company creation through an overhauled legal framework; and providing financial support — including tax incentives — to science and technology-based companies.

The final two pillars address innovation financing and international cooperation. On the financing side, the headline initiative is the creation of a National Venture Capital Fund to support the development of local funds — both within companies and higher education institutions. On the international front, the strategy pursues two goals: attracting foreign intellectual, scientific, technological, and financial resources to fuel the ecosystem; and expanding and strengthening Vietnam’s innovative entrepreneurship network at home and abroad, with a particular focus on engaging the Vietnamese diaspora.

By tackling the key dimensions that define successful ecosystems worldwide, this strategy goes well beyond a simple startup promotion program. It simultaneously addresses the long-term success factors Vietnam needs to be competitive: financing, regulation, education, research, infrastructure, and market access. This ecosystemic approach to entrepreneurship isn’t just a nice-to-have thing, it’s essential. Innovative companies can’t be built to last on the back of a handful of individual success stories.

The strategy therefore sets out to lay the foundations for a dense, coordinated ecosystem — universities, research institutes, investors, large corporations, public agencies, and support organisations — capable of producing knowledge, funding risk, spreading skills, and connecting innovation to markets. It’s this interconnected web of actors, institutions, and processes that will ultimately sustain the creation and scaling of innovative companies over time.

The real challenge, then, isn’t just the number of startups created, or the targets hit on paper. What Vietnam needs most is a governance model that can effectively coordinate several strategic functions: technology transfer offices to bridge the gap between research and market; funding tailored to each stage of a company’s development, from seed to scale; suppliers capable of supporting product upgrades; large companies genuinely open to collaborating with startups; and public procurement mechanisms that give innovative businesses their first foothold in the market.

Without an active entrepreneurial ecosystem, value creation will remain fragmented. Scientific and technological knowledge will be produced but not sufficiently commercialised; startups will struggle to fund their growth; and without adequate domestic financing, the most promising companies will end up in foreign hands.

The success of this strategy will therefore depend less on the number of start-ups created than on the ability of universities, large companies, investors and public agencies not merely to coexist, but to genuinely build a structured, sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystem that is firmly rooted in both the national and international economies.

Benjamin Cabanes is a lecturer in entrepreneurship at RMIT Vietnam.
Thu Nguyen is a senior program manager in entrepreneurship at RMIT Vietnam.
Trang Le is a lecturer in entrepreneurship at RMIT Vietnam.
Cherry Sriratanaviriyakul is a lecturer in entrepreneurship at RMIT Vietnam.