How the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park grew 20-fold in 26 years

IN its early days, attracting foreign investors to the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) was a “hard sell”, said the Singapore chair of the industrial park’s operator.

The year was 1996, about 2 decades after the Vietnam War and just 2 years after the United States lifted its trade embargo on the socialist republic.

While Vietnam was industrialising rapidly thanks to a series of economic reforms introduced in 1986, many of its development indicators still lagged behind most of its Asean neighbours.