A Conversation with Pham Minh Chinh, Prime Minister of Viet Nam | Davos 2025 – YouTube Dictation Transcript & Vocabulary

1.well good afternoon everybody and welcome to what I think is going to be a truly fascinating conversation I'd like to welcome those people who are in the room and also those who are watching online and we are extremely honored today to have the Prime Minister of Vietnam prime minister F mein um to talk to us he has made a tremendous effort to be here I should say um he has not only come a long way but he's also a even though the cold weather in Davos has been quite a shock to the system and he's struggling with not feeling so well so first of all can I say a very big thank you on behalf of us all for coming here today it's great to have you I have to thank you in turn because you have given me such an auspicious discussion today with the effort both of the organizers thank you for that thank you well Vietnam is an absolutely fascinating country because in the last 40 years in the period of dooy you have achieved quite remarkable transformation of the economy and really blazed the trail in terms of Economic Development and before our conversation today I spoke to a number of large investors about Vietnam and they all praised the path the country has been on in the last four decades they also however raised questions for the future um you had 7% growth last year you're aiming for 10 to 12% next year you have good FDI figures you have good investment inflation and fiscal figures so that's all wonderful the questions that the investment Community has is firstly there has been political upheaval in the last couple of years which has hurt the economic trajectory and the new government that's in place is bringing stability but they primarily come from a non-economic background the security background so the first question thees have is how will you deliver good economic policies going forward the second question is that obviously there has been questions about the environmental cost of this rapid development so I'd love to ask you that and the third question that people ask is you have benefited by many global companies appreciating your developments and moving Supply chains to Vietnam but in an era where we have growing us Chinese confrontation and geopolitical problems how will you navigate that going forward so these are the questions that the investors here in Davos are Keen to hear about but I know that you actually wanted to start with a different question so out of respect to the long journey you've traveled I will start with a question that you really wanted to talk about first which was which was artificial intelligence um so I understand that you're Keen to tell us first of all about how Vietnam is grappling with the challenge of an intelligent age so perhaps you can start by telling us about that and then we can move on to some of the other questions that have been raised by participants in the Forum when they look at the remarkable development of Vietnam in recent Years thank you for the questions and the very fascinating discussion I can say that Vietnam is a developing country Vietnam is an economy in [Music] transition from a very low starting point after 40 years of war 30 years of embargo Vietnam must therefore make a lot of effort over the past decades to be where we are today that is the common effort of the entire Vietnamese nation in the spirit of great National unity and solidarity the greater the challenge the greater the effort we put to it that is the Vietnamese culture in 2024 a lot of challenges face Vietnam on top of the global landscape there's also a change in the generation of leadership without without warning this was a difficulty we were able to rapidly put things under control so that everything continues as they are so that our work is continued and the effort and the solidarity is maintained across whole country within the difficult backdrop this of course is followed by the yagi super typhoon which caus a lot of Destruction over the 26 provinces in the north part of Vietnam so that is Vietnam's landscape in 2024 that is the two events that characterized 2024 there were a lot of changes in leadership and then there was the Yi super typhoon and there are other things as well but that is what we share the rest of the world now on artificial intelligence I think that the smart era is opening up and what I think personally on this is that this is an era where there has to be political stability where there has to be peace rather than War because that would facilitate rapid Economic Development and sustainable development that is also an age where we have to make good use of the environment to ensure sustainability it is an era we have to ensure social progress and equality to leave no one behind that is what I believe that will characterize the smart era it goes hand in hand with artificial intelligence that goes hand in hand in turn with database and the challenge that faces today is that we need to come up with a vision is that by 2045 Vietnam must be a developed High income country and given how low our starting position is given that we are a an economy in transition and our resilience is still limited the greatest challenge we have is concerning Big Data big database because without that we cannot have good foundation for artificial intelligence and the Vietnamese artificial intelligence has to be built upon the Vietnamese database and there are still difficulties that we are facing in this in creating and sharing a database or to out of this develop a national artificial intelligence and connect it with the database of all Ministries agencies localities and so forth so the big question here is to build a big database for the Vietnamese Nation so what we're doing here is we're issuing legal instruments and policies on the development of artificial intelligence and this is doing very well over the past two years the second thing that we have to do is to build a National Database to connect everything within Vietnam together and we hope to be able to complete a National Database by June this year and based on that we can establish Vietnam's own National artificial intelligence so that is what I think on this topic well thank you um I think many people inside Vietnam would applaud this um in the business Community there has long been a concern about the fact that there much of the um manufacturing activity has been low value at the lower end of the supply chain however one of the features of Vietnam in recent years is that R&D investment has been much lower than elsewhere in East Asia do you plan as a government to create incentives Financial incentives to encourage more research and development um investment or to find other ways to encourage companies to raise their level of R&D activity yes on research and development we are admittedly not investing as much on R&D compared to other countries in the region because one of the biggest things that characterize Vietnam is that Vietnam has a very low starting point and we are a developing country in transition and that means there are difficulties when it comes to R&D that being said over the past few years we have been improving the legal system and policy instruments to encourage and harness resources both private public can investors both domestic and internal and um International to pour into R&D and Vietnam has been arriving at incentive policies for example Samsung invested into an R&D Center worth several hundred million dollar it was open just a year back and with this incentive they continue to invest more into another R&D Center in the langa complex and most notably Nvidia who has been in discussion with us he is an or man and he was able to and there are number of R&D centers that are under work and with him and of course we have to set aside a certain budget for R&D and we have just issued a resolution concerning s science technology R&D Innovation and digitalization so this resolution set a 2% budget for for research 3 to 4% of development and so on and so forth and if we want not to fall behind there has to be ample resources Financial Resources investing into this and there has to be incentives and policies for this secondly this also means investing into human beings this means investing into education training there's a program for example for the training of 50,000 engineers in semiconductor and artificial intelligence for example right well if you manage to train that many Engineers rapidly I think you'll show a framework or template for many other countries um but in terms of the R&D investment you mentioned Samsung you mentioned viia many other big tech companies are Keen to look at Vietnam as an investment base they have um I think two concerns from talking to people at the event one one concern which I'll ask you about first is whether foreign investor rights are completely protected under Vietnamese law and treated on an equal par with domestic companies can you tell say anything to the attendees at The Forum about what you're going to do to reassure foreign investors that they will be treated on an equal level with domestic investors going forward legally this is a very interesting question indeed of course this begins with lawmaking to ensure equality between domestic and international investors this also means ensuring IP rights this is part of every FTA and this is always the hardest thing to negotiate for example when we negotiate with the US this topic alone took five years IP rights that took five years this also means infrastructure we have to invest into infrastructure so that companies both Vietnamese and international would be able to make use of these infrastructure on an equal basis at a on a market respecting the rules of value Supply demand and competition right well I think certainly everyone here will be interested to see what happens on that respect with the government um the second question people are concerned about here is that Vietnam has been a very attractive alternative location for investment as tensions between China and America have increased now now that means that Vietnam now has one of the largest trade surpluses with America of um in proportional terms of any country so are you concerned that you will become a target for the new Administration in America because we've had indications that they want to focus on countries with big trade surpluses with America and can you reassure the companies that are put the international companies that are putting money into Vietnam that they won't find themselves caught in the same set of trade conflicts that they've had with China and the us in the future you are very right of course Vietnam is ranking third in trade surplus Visa us China Mexico then it comes Vietnam more than 100 billion so this is a big question as the global landscape may change and administration may change and but at the at the same time we do not fear what is to come cuz with the us we have proposed a few measures to rebalance trade for example we are purchasing more planes from the us because we are developing the Vietnamese tourism industry as a spearhead sector which means we need a larger Fleet and that means purchasing from Boeing which is only American company we seek to buy 50 to 100 planes over the next 10 years and this will help to rebalance these bilateral trade and there other Hightech items of the US that we interested in as well so there are solutions in place there are political Solutions and diplomatic solutions to bolster Mutual understanding between the two countries there are economic Solutions and there are institutional Solutions this means trade agreements that we have been signing with other countries including with the us we are negotiating an adjustment of agreements we have signed with the US so with all of this in mind we do not have too much concern about this and of course we do not want trade war in the [Music] world this era this smart era should be one without unhealthy competition it must be a near of stable politics an era of Peace not war an era of stable Economic Development an era where the development among countries are inbalance and where countries can stand together against the challenge of our time I think that would and should characterize the smart year today because in every time these difficulties it would behoove us to work together that is why Vietnam's Moto is we have to share share benefits and harmonized risk because in times of tra War it would cause a lot of trouble but Vietnam's president haiming has a very famous poem that roughly translate goes there's nothing difficult as long as our heart is in the right place whether we are digging the mountain or leveling a sea as long as there's a will there a way there's a lot of things that we have in place there are political Solutions economic solution and we have all these in place to avoid tra conflicts in the world today right well I think everybody in the Congress Center would thoroughly agree with that sentiment I don't think many people here want to see trade Wars at all so you're speaking to a group of people who strongly agree with you however um it's quite striking that the Trump Administration has already just today last 24 hours announced 25% tariff against Mexico which is the second biggest Trade Surplus they're threatening a whole series of tariffs against China until now they've actually not mentioned Vietnam which is quite striking and I asked some of the Trump team why and they said well they're waiting to see whether Vietnam will be friendly to America or to China and they're also waiting to see what happens with Mexico and others so I have two questions um prime minister the first is are you going to be able to stay friends with both America and China and my second question is have you spoken yet to the team of Donald Trump about what Vietnam can do to keep yourself off the list list of people that Trump tweets about CU thus far I don't think there's been any tweets at all about you yet there's been plenty about other countries but thus far I should congratulate you of staying out of the president's tweet stream so can you be friends with both America and China and have you spoken with the Trump Administration yet thank you very very fascinating question now first Vietnam for policy is one of Independence self-reliance diversification and multil multilateralization to be a good friend and reliable partner of all countries around the world second Vietnam is to be a responsible member of the International Community for peace cooperation and development so that means we'll be friend to all to China to the US to Mexico to all this is Vietnam's foreign policy align and all countries our friend and a trusted partner this means China this means the US and in truth over the past years Vietnam have been keeping everything in Balance there's no issue over here and this has brought about benefit to peace cooperation and development for both us and China and Vietnam at the same time now on the on the on the detail I think we are different from China and we are different from Mexico Mexico has a BAL issue has a b with um crime it has on top of economic issues we don't have these issues V us if you look at if you look into it the US has a responsibility to help Vietnam address War Legacy issue they have a responsibility to help Vietnam grow after all the devastation brought against Vietnam over four years we have just upgraded relations to the US to a comprehensive strategic partnership I don't think there's a reason that the US should treat us in a way that is not reciprocal to what we have treated them I think that is smart in that sense and unlike China we are not a direct competitor to the US not in trade not in investment this is looking at the facts as they are and our Trade Surplus V China V us is not that large in absolute terms no um do you plan have you spoken yet with the Trump team do you plan to go to maril Lago to see um the president and I have to ask a question having just been in Japan where I spent many years in Japan um many Japanese now say what a Pity that isib basan the um leader of Japan stopped playing golf 30 years ago if only he played golf like prime minister AB Japan would be in a much better position do you plan to play golf with President Trump we've talked with the US side and even the president himself a general secretary had a telephone conversation had exchanges with President Trump [Music] and we are still also figuring out our approaches but in fact we made the initial contacts the sh Administration and we have no concern about it for regarding the us we think we can handle our relationship with the us and we will let no one to exploit this relationship to further complicated the situation but on the other hand also enjoy good cooperation and relations with other countries but without disappointing the US in the spirit of harmonized interest and sharing risk to put golf and if it can bring about the interest to the uh country the benefit to the country and I can play Golf the whole day long right but I think make sure that when you do play golf you have plenty of Television cameras and make sure you let president Trump win um or maybe offer to build a whole bunch a whole bunch more golf courses in Vietnam I won't be afraid because I play golf to bring about the benefit to our people to our countries so don't worry about it I stand ready to be broadcasted to be on the media for the interest of our nation and people 40 50 years ago we had ping pong for peace in China we can now have golf for peace so um on a more serious note though the other question I want to ask where almost out of time the environmental questions Vietnam tragically has suffered directly the consequence of climate change what do you plan to do to help address these issues because obviously your rapid development your such impressive development has come at some environmental damaging cost yes it is true that Vietnam is one of the five countries wor affected by climate change going forward climate change and sea level rise because we have a coastline of 3,000 kilometer so Vietnam is one of the countries that would stand to be damaged by sea level rise Vietnam has made the commitment along with the International Community to Net Zero and we made a commitment to Green transition green transport and green production green manufacturing as I said before this means protecting environment and Vietnam when you go into the details in the meom Delta for example Vietnam has just got a project for 1 million hectare of high quality low emission rice conservation to help to contribute to Global Food security while still ensuring green farming we have another project another program to address issues that has to do with droughts floods [Music] and and land depression let's take another example the yagi super typhoon caus great damage to the northern provinces in Vietnam cost a lot of landslide so we have a pro program in place to combat landslide to protect the environment for the people so we have detailed programs on the ground and we're also working with the International Community on the development of clean energy for example offshore wind and solar power because we have no shortage of wind or sun what we need is investment what we need is to bring to us major investors so in the in the recent past we have been improving the INF the institutions to facilitate this and we have restarted nuclear power generation right program to ensure clean energy right well I think there are many people at this forum who would be delighted to cooperate with you because there's a great hunger for investing in power projects at the moment and as I said before a great hunger to diversify the source and the targets for those Investments so so thank you very much indeed um prime minister I'm very grateful for the conversation it's been truly fascinating um I personally take away two or three key points um the first is that Vietnam has indeed had this remarkable trajectory of development in the last four decades which I think everyone here in this forum would applaud and if you do achieve your target growth rate of 10 to 12% in the next year or two then you will truly be showing a model to The Wider World um however there obviously are some big challenges ahead be that environmental be that the need to invest in your research and development capabilities to look at the legal structures around that um and to try and upgrade your manufacturing base into higher value products um and last but not least of course the biggest challenge is going to be navigating this very difficult type rope in the New geopolitical Order and keeping all things happy and ensuring that you stay out of Donald Trump's the president Trump's Twitter feed as I say I should congratulate you on the skill with which you have managed to do that so far I think everybody in the world economic Forum would hope that you can continue to show it's possible to walk that tip rope so whether or not you play golf I'll just say to you good luck on behalf of us all and thank [Applause] you thank you we will develop in this new era in this smart era based on science and Innovation and digital transformation so this will be a very important framework this is also a revolution hand in hand with this that is a revolution to keep a good tide rope between the countries in the world to bring about benefit that we share for peace cooperation and development I think if Vietnam can achieve that then there will be many many people wanting to know how you did it and to copy you so as I say good luck thank you that's wait and see of course