By Le Hong Hiep
Key Takeaways:
- As of 31 October 2026, Pham Nhat Vuong leads Vietnam’s eight Forbes billionaires, all ethnic Kinh from the North and mostly first-generation founders shaped by Soviet-bloc study and trade, in sharp contrast to the ethnic-Chinese dominance among the top fortunes in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
- Post-1975 nationalisation and the Sino-Vietnamese rupture dismantled the pre-1975 Hoa commercial networks, allowing a cohort of returnees to accumulate capital abroad and later align closely with the state under To Lam, securing major infrastructure and industrial projects.
- The configuration reduces foreign influence and supports national-champion diplomacy, yet risks “red crony capitalism,” limited succession planning and continued heavy concentration in real estate and finance rather than technology.
As of 31 October 2026, Forbes’ real-time billionaire tracker put the fortune of Pham Nhat Vuong, founder and chairman of Vingroup, Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate, at roughly US$27.7 billion. This placed him around 93rd globally and second in Southeast Asia, behind Indonesia’s Prajogo Pangestu.[1] Vuong’s wealth has increased significantly over the past year, propelled by the runaway share performance of his conglomerate’s property, retail and electric-vehicle arms. He now sits at the top of a list of eight Vietnamese US-dollar billionaires recognised by Forbes, the largest such cohort in the country’s history.
What is less often remarked upon, but arguably more revealing, is who these eight billionaires are not. All are ethnic Vietnamese, or Kinh. All hail from northern Vietnam,[2] and most share a formative period of studying, trading or doing business in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe before returning to Vietnam to build their business empires. Strikingly, not a single one is an ethnic Chinese, or Hoa, entrepreneur, despite Vietnam having long had a sizeable Chinese-descended business community.
This is a distinctly Vietnamese pattern. In Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, a substantial share of the wealthiest individuals are ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs or members of Chinese-origin business dynasties that have accumulated wealth over several generations. This article therefore raises two questions: why are the social and ethnic origins of Vietnam’s billionaire class so different from those of its neighbours, and what does this difference imply for Vietnam’s economic development, socio-economic structure and foreign policy?
The article begins by comparing Vietnam’s billionaire class with those of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, using data available at the end of October 2026. It then explains the divergence by tracing it to the post-1975 socialist transformation of the economy, the weakening of the ethnic Chinese business community, and the subsequent rise of a distinctive cohort of entrepreneurs shaped by their experiences in the former Soviet bloc. It concludes by examining the economic, political and foreign-policy implications of this configuration, as well as how Vietnam’s billionaire class may evolve in the years ahead.
Comparing Vietnam’s Billionaire Class with Its Neighbours
The tables below draw on Forbes data to compare Vietnam’s billionaires with a representative sample of the wealthiest individuals/families in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.
For Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines, Table 2 lists each country’s top eight billionaires or billionaire families by net worth, mirroring the size of Vietnam’s own Forbes cohort in Table 1 to make the comparison as direct as possible.
The contrast is unmistakable. Vietnam’s Forbes-recognised billionaires are all ethnic Vietnamese. Across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand, 26 of the top 32 entries (81 per cent) trace to Chinese immigrant families. The pattern holds in each country. In Indonesia, five largest fortunes—Pangestu, Low, the Hartono brothers, and Salim—rank ahead of Pribumi data-centre magnate Otto Toto Sugiri and Indian-origin industrialist Sri Prakash Lohia. Malaysia’s top eight are all of Chinese descent except for last-ranked Bumiputera tycoon Syed Mokhtar AlBukhary.
The Philippines’ Ang, Tan and four Sy siblings remain fixtures, alongside two non-Chinese fortunes—Enrique Razon’s ports empire and Manuel Villar’s property conglomerate, now ranked first and fourth. Meanwhile, four branches of Thailand’s Chearavanont/CP Group dynasty, plus the Sirivadhanabhakdi, Prasarttong-Osoth and Sathientham families, occupy seven of its top eight places, leaving energy tycoon Sarath Ratanavadi as the sole non-Chinese entrant.
Unlike many of their peers in the four neighbouring countries, whose family fortunes were built over several generations, Vietnam’s billionaires are almost all first-generation founders who accumulated their wealth from the 1990s onward. Seven of them, with the exception of Hoa Phat Group’s Tran Dinh Long, also share a distinctive biographical background rooted in a particular historical legacy: Vietnam’s socialist-era ties with the Soviet bloc.
Why Is Vietnam’s Billionaire Class Different?
Historical Legacies: The Weakening of the Ethnic Chinese Business Community after 1975
Before 1975, ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs occupied a commanding position in the South Vietnamese economy, with a strong presence in trade, finance, rice distribution and light manufacturing.[3] After reunification, the socialist transformation of private capitalist industry and commerce launched in the late 1970s nationalised or collectivised much of this commercial base. Ethnic Chinese traders were disproportionately affected because they were heavily concentrated in precisely the sectors targeted by the campaign.[4]
The timing compounded the disruption. As Sino-Vietnamese relations deteriorated over Cambodia, border disputes and Vietnam’s growing alignment with the Soviet Union, culminating in the brief but bloody border war of 1979, Vietnam’s ethnic Chinese community became increasingly subject to political suspicion and discriminatory treatment. By several accounts, the authorities also encouraged or facilitated their departure. Roughly 450,000 ethnic Chinese reportedly left or were expelled across the northern border between 1978 and 1979 alone, with the exodus continuing into the 1980s.[5]
The result was a major rupture in the commercial networks, accumulated capital, and intergenerational structures that had sustained Hoa’s entrepreneurial strength. This had no close parallel in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia or the Philippines, where Chinese-origin business networks retained much greater continuity, allowing capital, commercial knowledge and family enterprises to compound across generations.
A substantial ethnic Chinese population remains in Vietnam and continues to play an important role in business, particularly in and around Ho Chi Minh City. Yet, partly because of the historical disruptions described above, and partly because of the way opportunities have been distributed in Vietnam’s post-Doi Moi political economy, Chinese-Vietnamese entrepreneurs appear to have developed in less proximity to the state; this has proved important to the rise of some ethnic Vietnamese business groups. In sectors such as real estate, infrastructure and finance, access to land, credit, licences and state-linked projects has often been crucial to rapid expansion.
The most consequential recent example is also instructive because of how it ended. Truong My Lan, the daughter of a Chinese-Vietnamese trader who reportedly began by selling cosmetics at Ho Chi Minh City’s Ben Thanh Market, built a sprawling real estate and financial empire through Van Thinh Phat Group and reportedly cultivated relationships with numerous former city officials.[6] Her empire collapsed in 2022–24 in what prosecutors described as Vietnam’s largest-ever fraud case, centred on her de facto control of Saigon Commercial Bank.
Other prominent Chinese-Vietnamese entrepreneurs, such as Dang Van Thanh of Thanh Thanh Cong, the Tran Kim Thanh–Tran Le Nguyen brothers behind Kinh Do Group, Ly Ngoc Minh of Minh Long ceramics, and Co Gia Tho of Thien Long stationery, have built substantial and, in some cases, multi-generational businesses. Yet none has reached the scale, political visibility or state-adjacent reach of Vietnam’s current dollar billionaires.
The Rise of the “Eastern European” Generation
Vietnam’s private sector began to accelerate from the 1990s, and a striking number of the entrepreneurs who rode that wave had previously studied, lived or traded in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Many had gone there on scholarships. The Soviet-era scholarship system generally favoured academically strong students with politically acceptable backgrounds, including children of government officials and state employees. After the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, a number of these Vietnamese students stayed on and went into business, often in trading and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG). These ventures allowed them to accumulate the initial capital that later financed their expansion in Vietnam.
Vingroup founder Pham Nhat Vuong is the paradigmatic example. After graduating from the Moscow Geological Prospecting Institute, he moved to Kharkiv, Ukraine, where he built the Mivina instant-noodle brand through Technocom before selling the business to Nestlé in 2009,[7] reportedly for US$150 million. That capital, together with the commercial experience gained in Ukraine’s turbulent post-Soviet economy, helped provide the foundation for Vingroup, now Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate.
Vuong was not alone. His wife, Pham Thu Huong, and his sister-in-law, Pham Thuy Hang, were also shareholders in Technocom in Ukraine during the 1990s. His early business partner, Le Viet Lam, co-founded Technocom with him before returning to Vietnam to establish Sun Group, which has since grown into a major real estate, tourism, and infrastructure conglomerate. Masan founder Nguyen Dang Quang and Techcombank chairman Ho Hung Anh also built their relationship while studying and doing business in Russia.[8] Vietjet Air and Sovico Group founder Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, Vietnam’s first female billionaire, reportedly made her first million dollars through trading while she was still a 21-year-old student at the Moscow State University of Commerce.[9] VPBank chairman Ngo Chi Dung also earned his PhD and began his business career in Russia before returning to Vietnam to build his banking interests. Vietnam’s economic opening thus coincided with the return of a cohort whose capital, experience and networks gave them a significant head start over many domestic entrepreneurs who had never left the country.
Their shared years abroad appear to have produced more than parallel biographies. In some cases, they also generated durable personal and commercial relationships, with family and business ties continuing long after their return to Vietnam.[10] One of the clearest illustrations is Masan’s 2019 acquisition of Vingroup’s VinMart, later renamed WinMart, and VinEco businesses. The deal allowed Vingroup to exit a capital-intensive retail and agriculture operation and concentrate on property and, increasingly, electric vehicles, while giving Masan immediate scale in modern retail to support its FMCG business. Vuong and Quang reportedly concluded the transaction after relatively brief negotiations, suggesting that longstanding personal trust may have facilitated the deal.
Vingroup and its property arm, Vinhomes, have also maintained close commercial ties with Techcombank, one of their major financing partners. These relationships are reinforced by the longstanding connections among Vuong, Quang and Anh, with Quang and Anh both major shareholders in Techcombank. Such links point to a broader web of financing, investment and transaction relationships among Eastern Europe-linked business groups. These networks do not by themselves explain their success, but they may have allowed capital, information and commercial opportunities to circulate more easily among a cohort whose fortunes subsequently rose in parallel.
The Growing Alignment between Large Private Corporations and State Strategy
As Vietnam’s leadership under General Secretary and President To Lam pursues sustained high growth toward its 2045 high-income target, large private conglomerates such as Vingroup, Sun Group and Masterise Group have become increasingly central to the state’s development toolkit. Their capacity to mobilise capital and execute large projects quickly has made them de facto partners in infrastructure, urban development, energy and industrial policy.
Vingroup, for example, has been tasked with building the Vietnam Exposition Center, the 135,000-seat VinFast Trong Dong stadium, five Hanoi metro lines, and the Hanoi–Ha Long and Ben Thanh–Can Gio high-speed rail projects, among others. Sun Group has been appointed developer of various urban redevelopment projects, especially in Ho Chi Minh City, including the city’s new administrative complex.[11] Masterise Group, which is backed by Techcombank of Ho Hung Anh and Nguyen Dang Quang, has likewise won numerous infrastructure projects, including the Can Gio and Phu My 2 bridges in Ho Chi Minh City and Gia Binh International Airport in Bac Ninh Province.
To Lam’s government trusts these firms not only because their execution track record helps him deliver on his development vision. They also reportedly enjoy close connections to the state, including the Ministry of Public Security (MPS), where To Lam once served as minister. Vingroup is not only the developer of the VinFast Trong Dong stadium but also the contractor for PVF Stadium, a 60,000-seat venue owned by the MPS. Masterise is the developer of Gia Binh International Airport, where the MPS is the project owner. Sun Group, meanwhile, won the contract for Ho Chi Minh City’s new administrative complex under Tran Luu Quang, the city’s new Party Secretary and a known close ally of To Lam.
This closeness also stems from the backgrounds of the conglomerates’ leaders. As noted, many of these billionaires hail from Northern Vietnam and from families of politically acceptable backgrounds, which can make it easier for them to build trust with Party and government leaders. In addition, many senior central-government officials also studied in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, suggesting that these shared educational and social backgrounds may have further facilitated personal connections and mutual familiarity. On the contrary, ethnic Chinese entrepreneurs are less likely to enjoy the same advantage, given the lingering mistrust in Vietnam–China relations, a sentiment rooted in history and simmering disputes in the South China Sea.
In turn, the alignment of these conglomerates with the state’s strategic goals enables them to expand rapidly, enriching their owners. When To Lam was first elected general secretary in August 2024, Forbes estimated the fortune of Vingroup chairman Pham Nhat Vuong at roughly US$4.1–4.2 billion. By 31 August 2026, Forbes’ real-time ranking put it at approximately US$36.5 billion, a nearly nine-fold increase driven largely by the surge in the share prices of his companies. This illustrates how strongly the fortunes of Vietnam’s largest private conglomerates can rise when their commercial expansion coincides with a conducive political environment.
Significance and Implications
The composition of Vietnam’s billionaire class brings both advantages and costs. On the one hand, because the upper ranks of Vietnam’s private sector are dominated by native entrepreneurs, Hanoi will be less exposed to foreign economic and political influence. Moreover, their Vietnamese origins may also give the country’s leading tycoons stronger nationalist incentives to align their business strategies with national development priorities and contribute to Vietnam’s broader rise.
VinFast’s costly bet on building a homegrown automotive industry, for example, was reportedly encouraged and supported by Vietnamese leaders seeking to establish a domestic car industry as part of the country’s industrialisation drive.[12] In a 2019 media interview, Pham Nhat Vuong also spoke of his ambition to contribute to Vietnam’s development so that the country would be known “not only for its heroic past, but also as an intelligent and sophisticated nation”.[13] Such an alignment between the commercial ambitions of Vietnam’s billionaires and the state’s development agenda could meaningfully improve the country’s prospects of achieving high-income status by 2045.
On the other hand, most Vietnamese tycoons have not inherited the extensive cross-border commercial relationships available to many Chinese-origin business families elsewhere in the region. They have therefore had to build their own ties with Chinese suppliers, sources of capital, and technology, while Chinese-origin billionaire families in other Southeast Asian economies often enjoy a structural head start. The closeness between the state and local tycoons also carries significant risks.
Where major conglomerates succeed partly because of preferential access to land, credit, licences and planning decisions rather than through open competition, the result can resemble what might be termed “red crony capitalism”. In the absence of transparent and effective institutions, such arrangements can foster corruption, entrench unequal access to opportunities, squeeze small and medium-sized enterprises, and channel capital towards politically connected firms rather than the most productive uses.
In terms of foreign policy, the impact seems more positive. The close relationship between local billionaires and the government also lets Hanoi deploy private conglomerates as instruments of economic diplomacy. For example, Vietjet’s Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao has repeatedly featured in high-profile Boeing purchase announcements timed to high-level US-Vietnam political exchanges, including deals inked around General Secretary To Lam’s February 2026 Washington trip.[14] Such purchases help narrow Vietnam’s trade surplus with the United States while connecting American commercial stakeholders, from Boeing’s home state of Washington, to its supply chain, and with an interest in stable bilateral ties.
Thao also hosted a “Friends of Vietnam Summit” at Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s estate, in January 2025, where she reportedly met Trump and Elon Musk. The timing of the event and choice of venue suggest that it may have formed part of broader Vietnamese efforts to establish early channels of engagement with the second Trump administration through Thao and her companies. Vietnamese “national champions” are thus increasingly functioning as both commercial actors and instruments of economic diplomacy: they gain market access and political support while providing the state with flexible channels through which to advance its interests abroad.
A few further trends bear watching. Private national champions may strengthen Vietnam’s competitiveness against larger regional rivals, but the current generation consists almost entirely of first-generation founders now in their late fifties and sixties. Succession and corporate governance will therefore become increasingly important over the next decade or two, potentially reshaping relations between these conglomerates and the state as control passes to heirs who may be less personally embedded in existing political networks.
Vietnam’s billionaire wealth also remains heavily concentrated in real estate and finance, leaving open the question of whether these groups can successfully move into technology and advanced industries. Ultimately, Vietnam’s competitiveness will depend less on simply having home-grown billionaires than on whether their firms can become genuine global businesses instead of remaining dependent on domestic assets, markets and political connections.
For endnotes, please refer to the original pdf document.
- About the author: Le Hong Hiep is Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Vietnam Studies Programme at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
- Source: This article was published by ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.
