The joy was clearly seen in the sharing of FPT's leaders and team when the group signed a digital transformation contract worth 256 million USD with a leading energy group in Asia - the largest contract in the development history of the enterprise. Not only a record number, this milestone shows that Vietnamese enterprises have truly entered the "big playground" of the regional and global digital economy.
FPT's story reflects the fundamental changes of the Vietnamese business community, especially the private economic sector.
However, the country's development cannot be measured only by the number of billion-dollar enterprises or contracts worth hundreds of millions of USD. A more important measure is the change in people's lives.
2025 - the final year of the 2021 - 2025 term, has a particularly important meaning, being the time when the whole system accelerates to the finish line, while creating a foundation for the new development period of 2026 - 2031. Looking back at 40 years of innovation, the growth model based heavily on cheap capital, cheap labor, processing and exploiting resources has brought about great achievements: Attracting investment, creating jobs, rapid GDP growth, improving people's lives. But so far, this model has clearly revealed its limitations: Low productivity, low added value, dependence on the outside, depleted resources and great environmental pressure.
It is time to innovate the growth model not only as a call, but as a development order.
This requires economic restructuring, improving the quality of human resources, and effectively implementing dual transformation - digital transformation and green transformation - in the direction of mutual support.
A major bottleneck at present is the efficiency of resource use, especially financial resources. Vietnam's ICOR index (capital-to- major output ratio) is around 6, meaning that to create 1 tael of growth, it takes up to 6 taels of investment capital, double that of some economies such as Korea or China. This requires improving capital efficiency, so as not to waste resources.
This needs to start from the public sector. Public investment must be better prepared for the project, reduce implementation time, and put the project into operation soon to contribute to growth and social security.
In particular, it is necessary to soon have a strategy for using capital sources and using the budget revenue increase for 2026 and the following years in line with the new growth model. It is necessary to issue specific priority principles and criteria in the use of capital in a scientific, focused, and budget-ored manner. Because this is a huge resource, it needs to be used truly effectively.
Finally, growth must return to serve people. As General Secretary To Lam affirmed, a rich country must have the people enjoy that fruit; growth must come to everyone, ensuring harmony, fairness and equality.
That is also the basic measure of the success of the new growth model that Vietnam is determined to pursue.
