Speaking at the 2025 Autumn Economic Forum in Ho Chi Minh City, Deputy Minister of Finance Do Thanh Trung announced the country is stepping up efforts to mobilise capital for green growth and sustainable development amid rising pressure on public infrastructure, climate resilience, and corporate decarbonisation.

The dialogue session, attended by senior officials and policy experts, centred on how Vietnam can unlock breakthrough solutions in digital transformation and green development. Economists stressed that despite strong political commitment, businesses remain unsure about how a “green enterprise” is defined - a key gap that limits access to concessional and sustainable financing.

Economist Tran Du Lich, chair of the advisory council overseeing the implementation of the National Assembly’s Resolution 98 on special mechanisms for Ho Chi Minh City, highlighted the scale of demand at the local level.

Citing a joint study by the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies and VinUni, he noted that the southern metropolis will require about VND 900 trillion (US$34 billion) over the next decade, or an average of US$4 billion a year, to transform into a green urban centre.

Lich questioned how such vast resources would be secured and what mechanisms the central government would use to support major urban centres such as Ho Chi Minh City.

In response, Deputy Finance Minister Trung said the Ministry of Finance and relevant agencies have deployed a three-pillar approach to boost funding for green transformation.

He said the Government is working to strengthen the green finance market, where corporate green bonds have grown rapidly and major state-owned enterprises, private conglomerates, and large banks are becoming increasingly active in issuing environmentally linked instruments. At the same time, green credit is being scaled up across the banking system, with lending to environmentally friendly projects rising at a double-digit pace and now representing a meaningful share of total outstanding credit.

In addition, he said, the Government is refining its framework for sovereign green bonds in an effort to attract more long-term international financing for climate-related and environmental infrastructure initiatives.

Trung stressed that public investment will remain a powerful lever. The coming five-year public-investment programme valued at more than VND8 quadrillion for national and local budgets combined, will prioritise green transport, environmental infrastructure, and climate-resilience projects.

Ho Chi Minh City is expected to be one of the largest beneficiaries under this allocation, given its role as an economic hub facing acute climate pressures, said the Deputy Minister.

The Deputy Minister also acknowledged that the absence of a clear and practical “green enterprise” standard is hindering both companies and lenders. Vietnam previously introduced a set of 72 green-growth indicators aligned with international and European Union practices, but the framework is considered too broad for direct use by businesses seeking financing.

To close this gap, the Ministry of Finance is developing a dedicated assessment system specific to enterprises. Work now underway includes new reporting templates and data-collection mechanisms aimed at building a comprehensive national database on firms’ environmental performance. This is intended to support more targeted policy design, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises that often struggle the most with compliance and financing burdens.

Trung emphasised that the main challenge is finding a balanced, realistic path that supports national green-growth ambitions while matching the financial capacity of Vietnamese businesses. The new criteria, he said, are expected to be finalised and issued in the near future.

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