With all the talk about Vietnam's economic growth, it is important to note that it will not have happened if the country is not properly ready for it. We have been seeing significant growth in various industries in Vietnam and a surge in migrating manufacturers from China, it is time for us to talk about the growth of Vietnam's infrastructure development. 

An expansion in transport infrastructure 

According to Vietnam Briefing, Vietnam spends approximately 6% of GDP on infrastructure development as opposed to the average 2.3% in neighbouring countries. 

In 2021, the Vietnam government implemented a plan to "promote the development of the road system for the 2021-2030 period, with a vision of 2050" to scale up nation-wide highways from the existing 1290 km to 5000km. Within this ambitious project, the Ho Chi Minh city-Hanoi highway remains one of the most anticipated projects. This comes as a timely and crucial decision as statistics show that in 2015, "over 55% of the country's freight traffic is related to overseas transport" and "maritime transport accounts for about 57% of total traffic." (Source: HKTDC) While road traffic takes up on 22.4% of the total traffic load. 

Plans for seaport expansion are just as important. The anticipated results planned by the Vietnam government was that in 2020 they will "enhance investment to upgrade modern container ports, especially the international gateway port of Cai Mep-Thi Vai, and develop ports in islands to meet development demand for Southern Key Economic Region. For Northern Key Economic Region, it was to develop ports of Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, and Lach Huyen as internal gateways and improve Hai Phong international gateway seaport to international standards by 2030. 

Public transit 

On top of international business-related infrastructures, public transit is also one of the biggest focus of the government. While the construction of metro lines was well-anticipated, due to being "costly but with low returns on profits", the development for metro lines were being held back and is far behind plans. 

According to Vietnam Briefing, experts have started to suggest that the government should source private investments for simplified procedures since the ODA loans require the construction to conform to "both foreign and domestic investment laws apart from added bureaucracy and red tape". By attracting private investments, the construction procedure may be further simplified, allowing developments to catch up to plans. 

Manufacturing infrastructure 

It is public knowledge that Vietnam has been focusing on developing all three key economic zone and is slowly becoming the nexus of manufacturing in the world, on the course to surpassing China. Most of Vietnam's industrial parks are equipped with the latest technology and have been attracting massive foreign investments into parks for textiles, electronics, food processing, etc. 

It is expected that Vietnam will push for the nationwide adoption of AI and 3D printing in their products. 

As mentioned at the start of this article, infrastructure growth is just as crucial as solely economic growth. It is likely that Vietnam will further improve to support its increasingly aggressive investment attraction.