How Vietnam’s Economy is Rewiring for Tech & Trade Battles with Valerie Vu – E595
"If you look at the Vietnamese demography, we're getting older before we get richer. So 2030 is when our golden population is no longer golden, because 2030 is when we start to age more than we have newborns. So this strategy is quite dangerous if one day our labor workforce is no longer the low-wage workforce that this model might work with. That’s why Resolution 68 and, late last year, Decree 58 are orienting Vietnam toward a newer economic model." - Valerie Vu, General Partner at Ansible Ventures
"Before, state-owned enterprises contributed more than 50 percent to Vietnam’s GDP, but according to Resolution 68, the government wants to push more private enterprises and private entrepreneurs to contribute more to the local GDP. They want entrepreneurs to build more and contribute more to the economy, especially the conglomerates. They want them to contribute at least more than 50 percent to the economy, instead of below 50 percent as of today. So state-owned enterprises will become less—still very important—but no longer the biggest contributor to Vietnam’s GDP. We encourage entrepreneurs and business owners to be at the forefront of building Vietnam’s economy." - Valerie Vu, General Partner at Ansible Ventures
"So I think we just finished the third official meetings for the negotiation of the tariff. The exact number was not disclosed, but both sides have been saying that most of the major concerns are already resolved, though there are still one or two points we haven't come to an agreement on. That's why they could not disclose the final number for the tariff, but they have already gone through three official meetings. From my intels, the U.S. side has asked a lot of difficult and very tough questions and also made demands—not just for military support like Vietnam starting to buy F-16s from the U.S.—but also forcing Vietnam to cleanse and clean out domestic commerce and trade so that we can prove that we have transparency on where the goods are coming from." - Valerie Vu, General Partner at Ansible Ventures
Vietnam’s rapid economic transformation is reshaping its future. Valerie Vu, General Partner at Ansible Ventures, joins Jeremy Au to explore how Vietnam is shifting from export dependence to a tech-driven, domestic growth model. They discuss the rollback of anti-corruption campaigns, intensified U.S. trade negotiations, and how food safety scandals are driving transparency reforms. Valerie also explains Resolution 68, a blueprint promoting private sector innovation and deep tech, and what this means for founders and investors.
03:00 The Anti-Corruption Campaign and Its Implications: The government quietly walks back its Burning Furnace crackdown by releasing powerful tycoons to restore stability and accelerate economic revival.
06:27 Tariff Negotiations and Their Impact on Trade: U.S.–Vietnam trade talks intensify, focusing on tariffs, defense cooperation, and pressure to enforce IP rights, block transshipments, and raise commercial standards.
10:09 Food Safety Scandals and Consumer Trust: Authorities expose counterfeit cooking oil and infant formula, prompting widespread crackdowns on fake goods to rebuild public confidence and meet international expectations.
13:53 The Shift Towards Domestic Consumption: As Vietnam faces an aging workforce and uncertain exports, it begins shifting to a consumption-led economy powered by local demand and entrepreneurship.
18:37 Resolution 68: A New Economic Model for Vietnam: This reform blueprint aims to elevate private enterprises, reduce state-owned dominance, and bet on AI, semiconductors, fintech, and data to power long-term growth.
25:23 Future Prospects: Infrastructure and Economic Growth: Valerie explains how Vietnam targets 8% GDP growth through credit expansion, zero-interest loans, and improved infrastructure while FDI remains on hold pending tariff clarity.
Jeremy Au (01:05)
Hey Valerie, good to see you.
Valerie Vu (01:06)
Hi Jeremy, good to see you.
Jeremy Au (01:08)
Well, you know, it's been a while, but glad to see and discuss about Vietnam and Southeast Asia. I think a lot has happened over the past few months, especially with the Trump tariffs, the pause of it, the current negotiation, but also the Vietnamese economy and Southeast Asia. So I think it'll be interesting, robust debate to have. So Valerie, why don't you tell me like at a high level what's happening with Vietnam today from your perspective.
Valerie Vu (01:31)
Yeah, from a high level, I think it's a bit hard to summarize everything going on at the same time, but you can.
look at Vietnam as we are going through a major economic and political transformations and reform. And this is the biggest reform since 1986, like since our first like Doi Moi reform. This is our second biggest reform, not in terms of just economic, but also like political. So last recording I mentioned that we have...
know, lay off public workforce and also like merging a lot of provinces. So we finished the project. officially only have like 34 provinces now. So we merged the provinces to half.
And now we are moving on to economic reform. So we revamped the export-driven economic model to domestic-driven economic model, driven by technology. And I think that's where venture capitals and also tech founders can play a major role into this reform.
It's just like one aspect of what's happening in the past three months. I can maybe summarize a bit more, you know, Jeremy, you remember two, three years ago, we arrested a few real estate and conglomerate leaders. One of them even had a death sentence. But actually in the past one month, we start to kind of
release all of them. So the CEO of Tan Hoang Minh Real Estate Group, the CEO of FLC Group, all kind of being forgiven. And also, if you remember Madame Truong My Lan, I think she, like her death penalty sentence is also scraped. And very high chance that she might be out winning this year. And all of them are contributing a lot of
money to the central government. So it's sort of like a reverse anti-corruption campaign and we realized the mission, the critical mission of this very successful businessmen and women to the economy, especially in this very vulnerable state of the Vietnamese economy. So we have to like...
release these wonderful entrepreneurs and them to help our economy in this very vulnerable state of economy
Jeremy Au (03:48)
Yeah, I think it makes a lot of sense. And what was interesting was that, you know, we talked about the Burning Furnace anti-corruption campaign, right? And at that point of time, it was a huge push with over 30,000 individuals being investigated, over 16,000 investigations. So, and then obviously caught a lot of small fish, big fish. And so, and after that, we had the settlement of the political, right? With the...
transition of the leadership for Vietnam. And then now we have this economic weakness period driven by the Trump tariffs policy. And so now it's interesting here you describe it as the reverse corruption anti-corruption campaign.
And I think it's interesting because I think this is a little bit similar to the China dynamic, right? Where we had a lot of entrepreneurs who were very silent. For example, the most famous being Jack Ma at Alibaba. He was very much silenced and was kept quiet for some period of time. And now he's back now that, you know, to kind of like hopefully transform Alibaba, but also kind of like keep pushing the economy as well. So I think there's some interesting parallels there.
Valerie Vu (04:58)
Yeah, definitely this parallel. And I think we also learned from China on this resolution 68 that is forcing Vietnam to be more like technology driven so that we can become like high developed countries and escape from the middle class trap, middle income trap. But in the process, we are still getting
very under a lot of stress in the negotiation with US regarding the tariff. So I think we just finished the third official meetings for the negotiation of the tariff. And the exact number was not disclosed, but both sides have been saying that
most of the major concern are already like resolved, but there's still one or two point that we haven't come to an agreement. And that's why they could not disclose the final number for the tariff, but they have gone to like third meetings, like official meetings already. for my entails, the US side have asked a lot of difficult and very tough.
questions and also demands from not just military support from the US, like Vietnam starting to buy F-16 from the US, but also forcing Vietnam to cleanse and clean out the domestic commercials and trade so that we can prove that we have transparency where the goods coming from.
We are not being a transshipment hub, and we are not relying on Chinese for supplying suppliers for supply chain. So in addition to bigger news in the real estate development front, we also have a small scale, a lot of small scale arrests and crackdown of like, you know,
counterfeit products and also fake food products that are kind of very popular in Vietnam in the past few years. We also ban on the discount. Previously, most of the merchants have very steep discount of 80%. Now that practice is totally banned. And the highest percentage of discount that merchant can advertise is capped at 50%
So honestly, the past two months is a lot of change, a lot of movements in the trade and commerce industry in Vietnam.
Jeremy Au (07:11)
So I think a lot to dig into. I think maybe we'll start first with I think the macro, right? The start of it, which is that I think all of us felt like, you know, there's a burning furnace campaign. Okay. And that caused some real estate, obviously, at the time, you know, pricing instability, right? Because of these incomplete projects. As a political transition, we're just relatively smooth. I think the big transition has really been this
Liberation Day terrorist, right, which kind of like threatens the whole Vietnamese economic model export orientation. So and obviously check out our past episodes to discuss those impacts. But I think what's interesting is I think that on reflection, it felt like all of my Vietnamese peers before the terrorists came to place were much more optimistic about what that starting position was. Right. And then I think that very high Vietnamese terror position that America had.
Jeremy Au (08:01)
kind of like really surprised everybody. And now I think there's this negotiation phase that's quite difficult. So I think it sounds like there's like several pillars of it. So correct me if I'm wrong. So I think first of all, obviously is, you know, there is a tariff structure on Vietnamese goods going to America. So I think that's one big pillar. The second big pillar is defense spending, which you and I know that they had already started taking action by buying Boeing and so forth. So military purchases from America.
But the third thing that's interesting is actually quite interesting to me and new to me is the higher standards on let's say intellectual property, on transshipment. Could you share a little bit more about this third pillar?
Valerie Vu (08:37)
Yeah, exactly. So I think the third pillar has pretty much shocked all the small business owners in Vietnam because previously they can just buy like a lot of goods for cheap from China and not worry about clarifying where the origins of this product. But now, if they cannot prove where this goods coming from, you know, they will be fine. And it's a very hefty fine as well.
So a lot of small merchants were cracked down because now we have to prove like this is not a counterfeit products. We need to show like this have a clear IP, clear like shipment route is not coming from China, especially in the food standards. Like they also find out a lot of food products.
falsifiedly claim that they have like protein, they have a lot of nutrition in this product, but actually when they do like quality control, the product only has about 10 % of what they claim that the product has. So that's some of the milk brands, some of the cooking oil brands, all falsify claiming that they have nutrition value, where in fact they don't have any.
it's a cleansing movement on IP and on originality of the products to make sure that we are not selling fake and counterfeit products and especially to prove that we are
Jeremy Au (09:54)
I think it's interesting because this whole pillar is really much about, let's say, standards and practices, right? And personally, I also in Singapore read the news about the food safety scandal for cooking oil and the baby milk powder, right? And I thought that was interesting because the cooking one was basically the relabel animal feed oil, which is not verified for human safety.
and they relabeled it as cooking oil. But more importantly, they really relabeled it as a current popular brand that's used by street food and restaurants and packaging, like packaged processed foods. So I thought it was interesting where they made hundreds of millions of dollars, right? know, doing that. And then I'm like, thinking to myself, oh man, I really enjoy my food in Vietnam. Did I eat some of this edible feed oil? So I'm sure everybody in Vietnam must be pissed off.
Valerie Vu (10:43)
Yep.
Jeremy Au (10:43)
Yeah, because everyone's complaining, I'm sure, right?
Valerie Vu (10:45)
I think unfortunately we might have all been eating some food that was cooked with animal fat oil. Yes, I think so.
Jeremy Au (10:52)
It's like you and I definitely ate some because if you ate like
So I guess anybody who's eaten Vietnamese food over the past in Vietnam over the past couple of years probably had some percentage of it. Okay, one percent or some and that other part that was interesting was the fake infant milk powder was actually very similar because I was in China back in 2000s and you know kind of like
2008 around there, right? And that was also the fake milk powder was a big issue with the melamine protein poisoning case of children. So this is obviously different in sense that, you know, they didn't inject a protein that kills kids, But, you know, it's still a similar issue where, you know, there is a, the milk powder is being, it doesn't have the ingredients, like you said, right? It doesn't have the, there's no nutrition.
Jeremy Au (11:46)
Which is horrible because you're giving your baby, and I think there's actually a fair point, right? Because we all know that infant formula is very expensive, right? Per 100 grams versus, you know, standard cow milk powder, right? So I think there's that price upper charge that you're usually taking advantage to relabel. But, you know, I think it's kind of interesting because, you know, I thought these food safety scandals, wouldn't the local police want to crack down on this? Why is it only coming out now versus,
Jeremy Au (12:10)
like it could have happened like a year ago during the burning furnace anti-corruption scandal for example.
Valerie Vu (12:14)
I think a year ago, one year or two years ago, the burning furnace was only targeting the big real estate guys. But today, we are kind of cracking down the food safety, because this is also for the nutrition and safety of the entire country. But I think it's a consequence of...
where when you try to find counterfeit products of like shoes and bags and clothes, you also realize there's a lot of counterfeit goods in the food that Vietnamese consume every day. So in addition to the fake milk, there was also a candy brand that advertised that if you only eat one candy per day,
You fulfill the whole vegetable requirement for the entire day. So it's like a vegetable candy. I think it's an alarming movement that the police sees and they decide to crack down all at once. Because this is for our reputation. For our...
We are promising to US that we are showing our effort to protect IP, to cleansing out the domestic commercial and trade. And by promising and doing that, we realize not just goods have a counterfeit issue, but also food.
has an issue on the safety standards. So that's why I think the police are doing everything at once right now.
Jeremy Au (13:38)
So I it's interesting because this is primarily a domestic food issue, right? I think that obviously gets a lot of headlines, both domestically and internationally. But of course, I don't think that is the thing that really satisfies America's request to dive into like more into the transshipment side, as well as the country of origin stuff. That being said, guess maybe weirdly an unintended positive benefit of this.
Jeremy Au (14:03)
Tariff negotiation is a tightening of food safety
practices in Vietnam. you know, thanks Trump, you know, for improving the health of Vietnamese consumers.
Valerie Vu (14:10)
Yeah, no.
Yeah, actually we're also doing a lot to tightening the ports. So recently our sea ports and our airports, especially like the major ports, they are all increasing supplies of like police in those ports. So before you only need like a few, I guess,
commissioners to inspect the goods coming in the country. But now every single port is supplied with police, like additional police to help with the quality control and transparency and traceability of these goods. So we actually like working on our promises and delivering what we have promised to the US and not just
We don't just like don't do anything.
Jeremy Au (14:54)
I guess the most important issue for America is really the transshipment piece, right? Which is the last thing they want is the Chinese good to go into the Vietnamese port, get labeled as a Vietnamese product, and then go into America, labeled as a Vietnamese good. And I think that's quite important because they also raise the tariffs on China dramatically, right? And so that increases the incentive for transshipment. So I think being able to crack down on this is going to be a key part of the strategy.
I think one of the implications of this, right? I mean, I'm just saying like, what's the silver lining? Like if you're like a founder, maybe now's the time to build a bigger Vietnamese factory with Chinese labor and talent, so you're really, you know, really producing in Vietnam. That's one approach. Is it better for international MNCs competing in Vietnam because they don't have to fight against,
unfairly, inappropriately low priced Vietnamese goods that were actually just Chinese goods without the same quality standards. I mean, I'm just kind of curious, like, what do you think are the implications you think for business and technology leaders?
Valerie Vu (15:54)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, so I think for the bigger MNC where their investment or FDI is in the range of like billions. So for them to actually like invest in more factories or warehouses in Vietnam, they need time. They need to see where this tariff negotiation is coming before they even put any commitment to build a warehouse or factory in Vietnam. So the sad
reality is actually a lot of FDI in Vietnam is being on hold because they don't know, this MNC don't know where the negotiation is coming. So they put on hold of all of this like big investment. For the smaller like entrepreneurs or especially the people with like...
200 or a couple hundred millions to build our local factories. I think a lot of them are like very serious on
moving the supply chain entirely to Vietnam. But it's not the story that you can do immediately in one year. Because Vietnam is 15 to 20 years behind China in terms of hardware supply chain. if we want, we would love to produce iPhones or Samsung phone or everything from Vietnam and not relying on the chips or the components from China. But we cannot right now because we are still very far behind.
So if I were these entrepreneurs who have a couple hundred million to invest, I would actually jumping in right now to take the opportunity right now. I think in fact, Shein just officially has a Warehouse in Vietnam this past month.
Jeremy Au (17:24)
Yeah, I think it's actually a good point you have is that I think there was a lot of announcements last year about FDI for direct investment. You know, because everybody was really seeing a China plus one strategy, China plus one being Vietnam, right. And so Vietnam could benefit from, you know, Chinese components, you know, the assembly in Vietnam. But obviously, like I said, you know, the one thing worse than a high tariff rate is the uncertainty over the tariff rate.
And I think that makes a lot of sense, is that, you know, officially we can believe there's a lot of FDI, but unofficially, like you said, everything's going to be paused or slowed down until people sort it out. I think what's interesting is, yeah, the opportunities. So like you said, you know, I think for those who are willing to come in and build factories in Vietnam, maybe a smaller scale, this could be a good time to negotiate, right? I guess with Vietnamese local partners because of the weakness. I think it's also interesting that you mentioned that, you know, there's a bit of an effect
where you're mentioning where the Vietnamese economy has a rear end from export to domestic via the resolution 68. So why don't you talk to me about that? Because that sounds also a little bit similar to the Chinese push on moving a little bit more towards domestic consumption. But how big is it? How serious is it? Is it because Vietnam doesn't trust in the export orientation approach to America in case this happens again? Talk to me about that.
reorientation.
Valerie Vu (18:42)
Yeah, so I think this reorientation is bound to happen. When you only are an assembly hub of the world, you don't have any...
power in terms of IPs or technology. You don't have any proprietary technology. And the strategy will be at risk when you no longer have the young labor workforce that you used to have. And especially when this labor is becoming more more expensive than 10, 20 years ago.
If you look at the Vietnamese demography, we're getting older before we get richer. So 2030 is when our golden population is no longer golden, because 2030 is when we start to age more than we have newborn. So this export-oriented strategy is quite dangerous if one day our labor workforce is...
no longer the and the low-wage workforce that this model might work, could work.
So that's why resolution 68 and late last year we have also decree 58 that oriented Vietnam to a newer economic model. So before, state-owned enterprise contribute more than 50 % to Vietnamese.
Vietnam GDP, but according to the resolution 68, the government want to push more private enterprise and private entrepreneurs to contribute more to the local GDP. So they want entrepreneurs to build more and contribute more to the economy, especially the conglomerates.
and they want them to contribute at least more than 50 % to the economy instead of below 50 % as of today. So state-owned enterprise will become less, I would say still very important, but no longer the biggest contributor to the Vietnam GDP.
So we encourage entrepreneurs and business owners to be the forefront of the building of Vietnam economy. that's the main takeaway of resolution 68. Decree 57, on the other hand, really want to push Vietnam to be a high tech nation.
the government really pointed out artificial intelligence and semiconductors and fintechs and big data, LLM, as the main industry that will drive and move Vietnam forward instead of traditional exporting industries such as garment and textile. So those are the main points of, I would say, the biggest economic reform in Vietnam.
for the past 40 years.
Jeremy Au (21:30)
Yeah, mean, Resolution 68 sounds like a very big shift. I'm a Star Wars guy, so it reminds me of Execute Order 66. Emperor, now put in order to the clone troopers against the Jedi. But yeah, so Resolution 68 sounds very important. But I think the key thing here is, I think obviously it sounds like there's two parts. One is the orientation away from
Valerie Vu (21:41)
Hahaha
Jeremy Au (21:56)
export to domestic, which is a big piece. then secondly is improving the private sector, You know, versus I guess the state owned versus government sectors. So that's important. Do you think it's serious? mean, you know, I think that's, you know, I think a lot of people sometimes feel like, in Southeast Asia, you know, for example, know, Gita Sahir talks about Indonesia. There's a lot of orders or resolutions about privatization, but
you know, there's a big gap between reality versus the, you know, kind of like the policy declaration announcement, right? So this kind of curious from your perspective, how you think.
Valerie Vu (22:33)
Yeah, I think we cannot afford to be not serious. When you see the entire FDI of Q1 is on hold, and actually, Vietnam GDP growth is, a lot of it relies on FDI. And for the entire, I would say, three, four months of the year, the entire FDI is on hold, and you don't have any...
like new committed FDI and the country is being like pressure on 8 % GDP growth you cannot afford to not being serious with economic reform and that's why they release all the real estate tycoons from the prison
Jeremy Au (23:07)
Yeah, I think it's interesting, right, because I think you previously mentioned in past that the Vietnamese government is targeting 8 % GDP growth, right? I think in the previous episode. I think last year it was like, 7 %? And what do you think this year is going to be? It's going to be lower than that, right? I guess because of the tariff and FDI, maybe like, what, 6 or 5 %?
Valerie Vu (23:23)
Yeah, so the government is very ambitious and does not change its 8 % target. But realistically, I think 5 to 6 is a more realistic number, but the government doesn't think so. yeah, our prime minister is still firm on 8%. And you know, it's created a lot of stress.
Valerie Vu (23:44)
So the government also forced the State Bank of Vietnam to increase credit and also lower rates. The State Bank is also being asked to lend our money with zero interest to some projects, mostly infrastructure projects, lending. The State Bank is forced to lend at 0%.
Jeremy Au (23:50)
Hmm.
Valerie Vu (24:04)
And yeah, our loan debt to GDP ratio is quite high as of today. So we are under a lot of stress, I would say.
Jeremy Au (24:14)
Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. I you know, I think if you are the macro government.
forcing your domestic capital to deploy low interest rates to your own infrastructure. mean, of course it's better to get foreign capital like World Bank, et cetera, to do it. But if it's not available, then users have to get it done, right? And I think nobody would say that infrastructure in Vietnam is overbuilt yet, I would say. So it's not like Japan. Japan would be like, okay, you want to build more highways? I was just going to be like, don't really see the point of that.
Valerie Vu (24:39)
Yeah, no.
Jeremy Au (24:44)
I think China's starting to get that point already, the saturation point, to be like, okay, you better be careful about which infrastructure projects get 0 % interest rate loans because you may never get paid back. But I think definitely for Vietnam, think a lot more infrastructure needs to be built. I mean, know, I talk about the airports, the highways, the railways, there's so much that needs to be done.
Jeremy Au (25:04)
On that note, think looking ahead, what do you think are the most important milestones for Vietnam?
Valerie Vu (25:09)
Yeah, I think we have to get this negotiation period to end at a strong note. So I would say if the outcome is 20 % tariff, 10 to 20 % tariff, it will be great. Because if you compare like,
Compact cost analysis. If Vietnam is only like 10 to 20 percent tariff, it's still worth it to invest and build factories and manufacturing, build a manufacturing hub in Vietnam. So we have to get the tariff down to between 10 to 20 percent. So that's my KPI. Yeah.
Jeremy Au (25:45)
So if it's like 30 % then uh oh. If it's 20 % maybe and then 10 % would be good.
Jeremy Au (25:52)
Yeah, not an easy piece. Yeah, I think it'll be interesting because for me, when I hear all of that, think...
The tariff of is controllable to extend a negotiation. I think the big milestone is whether Vietnam actually successfully executes on resolution 68 Because you know, think I think the whole world cannot count on America as a export market anymore, right? And so I think the more painful thing is this resolution 68 whether it truly executes And you know, I think obviously depth of GDP Obviously, I'm a bit less worried about it. I mean, I think Vietnam is around
Valerie Vu (26:10)
Mm-hmm.
Mm.
Jeremy Au (26:22)
you know, think 33%, if I remember Vietnam and Indonesia is currently around 40 % right now for debt to GDP. And normally you can get up to about 60%. Obviously you don't want to do it in one go, you know, or do it super fast. But I think, I think both Vietnam and Indonesia have a lot of infrastructure to be built out. So for the right reasons, I think can be done. But I think that the shift to domestic consumption, if it's true,
Valerie Vu (26:34)
No.
Jeremy Au (26:48)
is also probably one of the biggest changes for people who want to be entrepreneurs in Vietnam, right? Because I think historically you wanted to be building something that was for export, but now you want to... If you're willing to build something for domestic consumption, maybe that could work, but obviously it's going to be a big transition in mindset and also opportunity set as well. ⁓ So it'll be interesting to see how that plays out.
Valerie Vu (27:09)
Yeah.
Yeah, think slowly there's a big added change, added shift in the government and the business community already. So we have a new national data center and the governor inside the national data center is actively working with startups in Vietnam to help like refining the data and also building the models for
for the national data centers. So that also allow entrepreneurs to like openly getting data from the government without like having to pay for it or having a lot of competition in who get the data. So I already see a positive change.
But I think resolution 68 is a long-term project. we might not see immediate effect like this quarter, but I think it's a three, five years kind of project. And right now, I'm already seeing positive approach from the government by paying and partnering with startups for the AI and data initiative.
Jeremy Au (28:08)
Could you share with me what that positive benefit looks like?
Valerie Vu (28:10)
Yeah, like I mentioned, older startups now can access openly data from the government. Before, there's lot of nuances, like you have to pay, you have to bribe to get the data. Now it's a fair and open competition.
If everyone can get data, it's a matter of who can train and develop models based on the same amount of data. And whoever can train it best and can build the best algorithm can win. So it's a very fair competition. yeah, that's actually one of our portfolio companies doing recently.
Jeremy Au (28:42)
Yeah, I think another business opportunity in my head, I can imagine would be, you know, looking at China as an example of if that shift truly happens, you know, some shifts that could also happen would be, well, the short term would be selling verified, obviously baby milk powder, But also, think, you know, in a broader sense, like if you're able to build like trusted domestic brands or Southeast Asian brands, like, I don't know, is that milk powder or food?
know, example in Singapore, right, for Vietnam, but some sort of trust dynamic around food and safety. I can imagine something that could be an opportunity there. Another opportunity I could think about would be maybe domestic tourism, right? I think that if you look at China, in history of China, most of the tourism was foreign. And then after that shift towards domestic, I think there's a lot more domestic tourism, which was quite interesting. So I'm not sure if that would unlock for Vietnam
Valerie Vu (29:17)
Definitely.
I think so. Definitely. I think there will be a lot of like more domestic brands that will be also born from this period of time. So I'm positive as well.
Jeremy Au (29:44)
I guess maybe another type of company that could do well would be like those, you know, like traceability, you know, kind of like startups, the country of origin verification. So if you're, don't know whether that would be an American startup that already does traceability or it could be a Vietnamese company that does it in partnership with American side, but being able to do that, you know, end to end verification that's respected by the Americans, but also by the EU for like, you know, audit.
Valerie Vu (29:54)
Yep.
Jeremy Au (30:12)
traceability, safety standards, that could be interesting. But of course, it's a bit fragile, I think, because that kind of startup obviously is very dependent on competing with local fakes. But you what it reminds me of? It reminds me of that time, remember, like 20, 30 years ago, was like China was as known as the land of all the fake handbags, right? And then around the Olympic season, 2008.
Jeremy Au (30:34)
they started cracking down on local fakes, handbags, counterfeit goods. And then now today, obviously, they still exist by much smaller extent in China. And I think as a result, I think there's an emergence of what I call domestic Chinese mass premium brands, if that makes sense. They're not super premium like Chanel or Hermes, but it's like those, the China equivalent of Tiffany's.
Jeremy Au (30:57)
some sort of which is, it's premium or mildly premium, but it doesn't get competed away straight away by some counterfeit, right? And so I thought there was an emergence of that mild luxury Chinese goods. So I wondered if that could happen to Vietnam.
Valerie Vu (31:09)
Yeah. I think so. It's called a masstige movement, like mass and still prestige. So we already have some similar brands. I think we also learned a lot from those brands in China. A bag brand that I really like is Songmont. The pricing is kind of in the middle and the quality still feels very premium. So I bet on more and more of those musty brands will appear in Vietnam.
Jeremy Au (31:35)
Yeah. On that note, thanks so much, Valerie, for sharing lots of business opportunities. And I think that hopefully the tariffs will land on the smaller number, Closer to 10. But maybe the next time we do this podcast, we'll find out what the number is and then we'll go from there. OK. All right. See you, Valerie.
Valerie Vu (31:51)
Yeah. See you.