Hanoi (VNA) – Resolution No. 19-NQ/TW, adopted by the third plenum of the 14th Party Central Committee on July 28, 2026, on renewing Vietnam’s development model, marks a strategic shift in the country’s development thinking – from pursuing growth targets to renewing the national development model, laying the foundation for realising Vietnam’s aspirations by 2045.
According to Dr. Nguyen Si Dung, former deputy chairperson of the National Assembly Office, Resolution 19 comprises a number of interconnected “building blocks” that form a new development model. Rather than being merely a collection of policies, the model represents a five-layer development architecture comprising development resources, a system for transforming resources, national capacity, prosperity and national strength.
The breakthrough of the model lies not in simply adding new growth drivers, but in placing national capacity at the centre of the entire development process. The model operates according to five fundamental principles: building capacity instead of merely exploiting resources; generating productivity through innovation; creating value through connectivity; pursuing development that generates both prosperity and national strength; and ensuring that all stakeholders participate in building national capacity.
Notably, under the new model, the State is no longer the sole actor driving development. Businesses, citizens, social organisations, universities and other stakeholders are all expected to participate in building national capacity.
Dung said the greatest requirement for ministries, sectors and localities under the new development model is not to do more, but to do the right things better. The success of localities will no longer be measured solely by the number of investment projects or the growth rate of gross regional domestic product (GRDP), but also by the strength of their innovation ecosystems, the quality of human resources, governance and their capacity for regional connectivity.
For ministries and sectors, every policy introduced must contribute to building national capacity. Specifically, science and technology policies should focus on strengthening innovation capacity; fiscal policies should help mobilise and allocate resources more efficiently; and education policies should seek to enhance human capacity.
For the business community, the objective should not simply be to expand scale or increase profits, but also to master technology, improve productivity, build brands and participate more deeply in global value chains.
To translate Resolution 19 into practice, the Government has issued an action programme with 40 specific targets, including a goal of achieving breakthrough annual growth of at least 10% during 2026-2030 and raising GDP per capita to around 8,500 USD by 2030.
Dr. Nguyen Thi Huong, Director of the National Statistics Office under the Ministry of Finance, said that after 40 years of Doi Moi (Renewal), the economy has begun to show signs of shifting from a growth model heavily reliant on expanding capital and labour towards one driven by innovation, science and technology and digital transformation, with greater emphasis on improving labour productivity.
The clearest indication is that labour productivity grew by an average of 5.2% annually during 2021-2025, while total factor productivity (TFP) contributed 47.04% to economic growth. The share of digital economy value added in GDP also increased steadily to 14.02% in 2025 from 12.87% in 2021.
At the same time, science, technology and innovation are gradually shifting from being supporting factors to becoming sources of competitiveness and added value. These developments indicate that the economy is strengthening its growth drivers and laying a foundation for development during the 2026-2030 period./.
