Looking at the savings-investment balance, Vietnam as a whole does not lack financial resources for investment.

According to the IMF, national savings were equivalent to 30.7% of GDP in 2021, below investment at 32.9%. But the balance reversed from 2022. In 2023, savings climbed to 38% of GDP while investment stood at just 31.6%; in 2024, the figures were 37.2% and 30.6%, respectively. By 2025, savings remained at 34.9% of GDP, still above investment at 30.9%.

On average over the 2021-2025 period, Vietnam saved about 34.7% of GDP each year, compared with investment of around 31.7%.

The external balance also points to substantial resources flowing into Vietnam. The country recorded a merchandise trade surplus in each of those five years, totaling nearly US$90 billion. Over the same period, net private transfers from abroad, of which remittances are an important component, exceeded US$51 billion, according to the IMF.

And yet businesses are still short of capital, banks are scrambling to attract deposits and interest rates are proving difficult to bring down.

So where is the money?

The answer becomes clearer when the economy is separated into the foreign-invested and domestic sectors.

Domestic deficit, foreign surplus

According to Dr. Ly Dai Hung of the Vietnam Institute of Economics and World Economy, from early 2021 through April 2026, the foreign direct investment (FDI) sector almost consistently saved more than it invested, with the surplus typically equivalent to around 2-5% of GDP and at times approaching 6%.

The domestic sector moved in the opposite direction. For more than five years, its investment consistently exceeded the savings it generated, with the shortfall generally running at around 2-4% of GDP and at one point reaching about 5% in late 2025 and early 2026. By April 2026, the FDI sector’s surplus had fallen close to zero, while the domestic sector was still running a deficit of around 5% of GDP. These figures are approximate readings from Dr. Ly Dai Hung’s chart, but the divergence between the two sectors is striking.

The composition of exports makes the imbalance even clearer. In 1995, domestic businesses still accounted for 73% of Vietnam’s export value, with FDI companies contributing just 27%. Three decades later, those shares have almost reversed: the FDI sector now accounts for around 80%, while domestic businesses contribute only 20%, according to Dr. Pham Anh Tuan of the Vietnam Institute of Economics and World Economy.

The trade balance is similarly divided into two very different halves. In 2025 alone, Vietnam posted an overall trade surplus of around US$20 billion. Yet the FDI sector recorded a surplus of US$49.5 billion, while the domestic sector ran a deficit of US$29.4 billion.

The picture is fairly clear: the economy as a whole has excess savings, but the domestic sector has a shortage; Vietnam runs a trade surplus, but domestic businesses run a trade deficit. The surplus and the shortfall sit in different parts of the economy.

Some of the income generated in Vietnam is also subsequently transferred overseas. According to an analysis of the national accounts by Dr. Bui Trinh, property income payments abroad amounted to around US$17 billion in 2021. For 2022-2025, he estimates the figure at roughly US$18-20 billion a year, and even higher in some years, mainly in the form of profits, dividends and interest payments.

Compared with 2010, these payments have grown about 5.1-fold, faster than the 3.5-fold increase in GDP at current prices. This means that some of the income generated by the FDI sector does not remain in Vietnam for reinvestment but is instead transferred overseas.

Pressure builds on banks

The domestic sector invests more than it can finance from its own accumulated savings. With Vietnam’s capital markets still not large enough to fill the gap, most of the demand ultimately falls on the banking system.

According to Dr. Ly Dai Hung, the loan-to-deposit ratio (LDR) hovered at around 80% between 2013 and 2021, before rising rapidly and approaching 110% in the first quarter of 2026.

The latest data from the State Bank of Vietnam also show outstanding credit exceeding VND20.15 quadrillion (US$765 billion), while deposits stood at around VND18.15 quadrillion (US$689 billion). The gap between the two has widened to VND2 quadrillion, or roughly US$76 billion.

That helps explain why banks are still aggressively competing for deposits even though the amount of money sitting in the banking system is enormous: credit is growing faster than deposits. When funding is tight, interest rates are difficult to bring down, while a factory, research center or technology project may take years to generate a return.

If Vietnam wants to raise investment to nearly 40% of GDP and sustain that level for years, it cannot continue placing most of the financing burden on the banking system.

Where can long-term capital come from?

To sustain investment at 40% of GDP, Vietnam needs sources of capital capable of staying with businesses for five years, 10 years or even longer.

Yet the capital market is not currently fulfilling that role. According to the World Bank, Vietnam raised an average of about US$53.5 billion a year through the banking system between 2019 and 2023, compared with just around US$2.9 billion through the equity market.

For that reason, the stock market should not be measured only by how high the VN-Index rises or how large its market capitalization becomes. A more practical measure is how much new capital businesses can raise from the market each year. A market upgrade should also be viewed through that lens: after an upgrade, how much additional international capital actually reaches Vietnamese businesses, and how long does it stay?

Corporate bonds have likewise done little to ease the burden on banks. The market reached around 15% of GDP in 2021 and 14% in 2022, before falling to 9.9% in 2023. It recovered to around 10.6% in 2024, but by the end of 2025, outstanding privately placed corporate bonds still amounted to only around VND1.15 quadrillion (US$44 billion), equivalent to 9% of GDP. After five years, an important source of medium- and long-term financing has not grown relative to the economy; it has actually shrunk.

Meanwhile, outstanding government bonds had reached nearly VND2.77 quadrillion (about US$105 billion) by the end of 2025, equivalent to 21.6% of GDP and more than twice the outstanding value of privately placed corporate bonds.

Government borrowing to finance infrastructure and economic development is necessary. But this disparity also shows that the market is capable of mobilizing long-term capital; what differs greatly is the ability of the state and businesses to access that funding.

What Vietnam still lacks are investors willing to commit their money for 10 or 20 years. The country needs pension funds, insurers and investment funds large enough to become long-term investors. Vietnam Social Security alone manages assets equivalent to more than 10% of GDP, according to the World Bank. That scale shows Vietnam is not devoid of long-term money. The question is how to develop mechanisms and investment principles sufficiently safe for such capital to participate in the market.

If Vietnam wants to sustain investment at close to 40% of GDP for years, factories requiring capital for 10 or 20 years cannot simply keep turning to banks to borrow money funded by people’s short-term deposits.

Across the economy as a whole, Vietnam does not lack savings. But for domestic businesses, the shortage of capital is very real. For years, much of the surplus has been concentrated in the FDI sector, while domestic businesses have invested beyond what they can finance from their own accumulated savings. Some FDI-generated income, meanwhile, is transferred abroad. The result is a paradox: the money is there, but those who need it remain thirsty for capital.

When long-term funding sources expand, pressure on bank credit could also ease. That, in turn, would create more room for interest rates to settle at a lower level.

Tu Giang