WHAT HAPPENED
The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee approved an import-export development plan for 2026–2030, which sets two linked targets: average annual export growth of 10–11% and raising the share of processed and industrially manufactured products in the city's export basket above 90%. This was reported by VnEconomy.
The starting point is known: according to estimates cited by VnEconomy, Ho Chi Minh City's export turnover in 2025 was about $95.8 billion, up roughly 7% from 2024, while imports were around $98.2 billion. In other words, the city enters the five-year period with imports exceeding exports and with the intention of changing not so much the volume as the structure of supply.
The priorities are spelled out directly: high value-added technologies, electronics, chips, processed industrial products. In parallel, the strategy envisages reducing logistics costs to 11–14% of GRDP by 2030, creating next-generation logistics zones and free trade zones, and increasing the share of e-commerce to roughly 20% of retail sales by the same horizon—these parameters are cited by Tuổi Trẻ. Some official mentions give a narrower figure for GRDP growth in 2026—10.2%, as reported by Tuổi Trẻ; the discrepancies are explained by the fact that target scenarios live in several documents at once.
WHAT THIS MEANS
For a Russian marketplace seller, this news does not sound like macroeconomics but like a change in the price list. For now, in the perception of many buyers, Vietnam is a factory that sells "semi-finished goods": components, fabrics, blanks, simple assembly under someone else's brand. The 90%+ processed products target means the city apparatus will support precisely those manufacturers who come to market with a finished product and their own added quality. Support means access to preferential sites, logistics, priority in investment scenarios, and therefore a lower cost base for the finished goods.
The practical effect for e-commerce is twofold. On the one hand, the supply of finished categories of Vietnamese origin is growing—from consumer electronics and small appliances to processed consumer goods that Vietnamese factories previously did not export themselves but handed over under someone else's brand. On the other hand, the model of "buy cheaper raw materials or blanks and finish them in Russia" is becoming a thing of the past. If Ho Chi Minh City is deliberately shifting exports toward finished goods, then the cost of entry to marketplaces changes too: it rises per SKU but falls per unit of finished value, because you are buying not a blank but a product with packaging, documents, and predictable quality.
There is also a second layer—logistics. The goal of reducing logistics costs to 11–14% of GRDP by 2030 and building next-generation free trade zones means Ho Chi Minh City is preparing to compete not only on production cost but also on delivery cost. For Russian e-commerce, which ships through Vladivostok, Southeast Asian transit hubs, and multimodal schemes, this is a signal: in 2026–2030, the route "Ho Chi Minh City—warehouse in Russia" may become cheaper and faster than it is now. But this is a forecast, not a fact of today.
And third, less obvious: the share of e-commerce at about 20% of retail sales by 2030, which VnEconomy notes, means Vietnamese manufacturers will themselves learn to sell online—both in the domestic market and for export. Some of them will come to Russian marketplaces directly, without an intermediary. This is both a threat to resellers and an opportunity for those who manage to become their official distribution partner in time.
VIETSMART EXPERT COMMENTARY
I see this dynamic in operations in Ho Chi Minh City literally every week. Russian entrepreneurs come to us with the same request: "find a factory that will make it cheap." And almost all of them make the same mistake—they ask for a sample of the finished product and a price per unit without asking whether the manufacturer has its own export license, a CFS certificate, and an understanding of EAEU requirements. Six months later it turns out that the factory is ready to produce only blanks under someone else's brand, and all the added value remains in Russia—and the margin is eaten up by logistics and finishing. The shift that Ho Chi Minh City is now recording breaks exactly this scheme: it is more profitable to go straight to those who already know how to export a finished product than to try to build the chain yourself.
CONCLUSIONS AND WHAT TO DO
- Review your assortment matrix: identify SKUs currently purchased as blanks or components and ask Vietnamese partners for finished analogues with export packaging and EAEU labeling.
- Request a CFS (Certificate of Free Sale) from the supplier and verify its number in the database of the competent authority of Vietnam—without it, the goods may not clear customs, and redoing documents will eat up margin.
- Clarify whether the factory has its own export license and experience of direct supplies to the EU, Japan, or Korea under EVFTA and CPTPP. Such experience is an indicator that the manufacturer is ready to work with finished goods, not only with OEM blanks.
- Factor into unit economics for 2026–2027 a 5–15% increase in purchase price per SKU and a simultaneous reduction in finishing costs in Russia—the final cost may remain the same or fall.
- Begin negotiations on a direct distribution contract with category exclusivity for 12–24 months while Vietnamese manufacturers have not yet entered Russian marketplaces on their own.
Source: VnEconomy EN — Business, September 28, 2026