Chair of Hoa Phat Group Tran Dinh Long

Four Vietnamese are on Forbes’ 2018 list of the world’s billionaires. These include two familiar names – Pham Nhat Vuong and Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, and two new names – Tran Ba Duong, chair of Truong Hai Automobile and Tran Dinh Long, chair of Hoa Phat Group.

Pham Nhat Vuong, the first Vietnamese dollar billionaire, had seen his stock assets approaching the $5 billion threshold by January 2018.

Dang Dinh Dao, former head of the Institute for Economic & Development Studies, said the appearance of billionaires reflects the country’s high and stable economic growth in recent years.

“More billionaires means business prosperity. Enterprises generate properties for themselves and society, and create millions of jobs. The billionaires will inspire thousands of startups and encourage people to invest in production and business,” Dao said.

Ngo Tri Long, former head of the Market & Price Research Institute, said the recognition of Vietnamese billionaires shows that Vietnam does not lag far behind other countries, and that the success of the billionaires shows the strong rise of the private sector, an important motive for the country’s development.

Le Dang Doanh, a renowned economist, said that billionaires from other business fields, including real estate, have made great contributions to the national economy, but he hopes Vietnam will have more billionaires in the industry and technology sectors. 

“I hope Vietnam will have many more billionaires recognized. Four billionaires is a modest figure for a country with 93 million people like Vietnam,” he commented.

One analyst said that people have changed their mindset about the contribution of wealthy people to the national economy and the country’s development.

“A society only develops when it has wealthy people,” he said.

Dao said that the names of Vietnamese billionaires, however, are not associated with globally well-known products and brands.

Bill Gates is always tied to the global brand of Microsoft, Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Jeff Bezos with Amazon, and Jack Ma with Alibaba. The products and services of Vietnamese billionaires are mostly consumed in Vietnam.

He also mentioned the social responsibility that Vietnamese billionaires need to have.

General Director of the General Department of Taxation (GDT) Bui Van Nam confirmed that corporations owned by the four billionaires are listed among the 1,000 biggest taxpayers in the country.

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