The Vietnam Weekly Podcast

Today’s guest is Greg Poling , director of the Southeast Asia Program and the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C.  He’s also the author of the 2022 book ‘On Dangerous Ground: America's Century in the South China Sea.’ We discussed the current situation in the East Sea, which tensions between China and the Philippines have d...

Today’s guests are Yen Vu , Assistant Professor and Major Coordinator in Literature at Fulbright University Vietnam, and Kevin Pham , Assistant Professor of Political Theory at the University of Amsterdam. Yen and Kevin also host the excellent Nam Phong Dialogues , “a podcast with the purpose of making history (especially about Vietnam) accessible.” We discussed the creation of Nam Phong Dialogues...

Today’s guest is Kelly Vo, Founder & CEO of Dear Our Community and co-founder of Map Me - both of which you’ll hear about in this episode. I’ve known Kelly for a while and she’s a vital part of the sustainability community here in Vietnam - it took a while to schedule this discussion, a testament to how busy Kelly is with her various endeavors, but I’m very glad it happened.  We discussed her work...

Today’s guest is Skye Maconachie, co-CEO of Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. I sat down with Skye at Blue Dragon’s busy office in Hanoi to discuss the organization’s ongoing response to Typhoon Yagi, which killed at least 262 people ; the needs of flood-hit communities in the capital; the difficult situation in mountainous areas ravaged by deadly landslides; the importance of long-term support;...

Today’s guest is Trường Trần, Captive Manager of the Cúc Phương Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Program for Save Vietnam’s Wildlife , or SVW. He’s been with SVW since 2017 and is deeply involved in their conservation work, particularly their pangolin and Owston’s civet captive breeding programs. We discussed these breeding programs, SVW’s anti-poaching work, research and monitoring of endanger...

Today’s guest is Washington State Senator Joe Nguyễn, whose district covers West Seattle and neighboring areas. Senator Nguyễn is Chair of the state senate’s Environment, Energy & Technology Committee, and one of the few Vietnamese-Americans in a state-level elected office. We discussed the state trade mission to Vietnam he joined in April and his takeaways on renewable energy and other issues, hi...

Today’s guests are Eddy Malesky, Professor of Political Economy at Duke University, and Paul Schuler, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona. They are two of the five co-authors of the 2023 Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index, or PAPI. PAPI is “the country’s largest, annual, citizen-centric and nationwide policy monitoring tool.” Eddy wa...

Today’s guest is Jack Nguyen, CEO of InCorp Vietnam , a corporate services firm that helps foreign businesses set up and operate in compliance with local regulations. We discussed Vietnam potentially losing out on major investments due to uncompetitive tax incentives; the main concerns of companies considering entering the Vietnamese market; Vietnam’s strengths in attracting investment; the ongoin...

Today’s guest is Eddie Thai, co-founder & general partner of Ascend Ventures Vietnam, or AVV . Few people in Vietnam have more tech funding experience than Eddie, and he’s been a great source of insight over the years. We discussed tech here in the context of the global ‘funding winter,’ the country’s tech strengths and weaknesses, what Eddie looks for when deciding to invest, Vietnam’s nascent AI...

Today’s guest is Bernard Kervyn, founder of the NGO Mekong Plus . We discussed how the organization’s work has evolved given Vietnam’s rapid economic growth over the last 30 years, shifting their focus to people who live on less than US$1 per day, offering microfinance while avoiding its well-documented risks, the different ways communities support each other in Vietnam and Cambodia, and the broad...

Due to scheduling issues, there isn’t a new guest today, so I’m taking this opportunity to revisit two previous episodes in the context of a pair of recently passed regulations. The first is the amended Law on Social Insurance, which goes into effect on July 1, 2025. I discussed Vietnam’s social insurance system with Tu Phuong Nguyen, a lecturer of Asian Studies at the University of Melbourne, in...

Today’s guest is Kim Le, founder and CEO of CL2B - short for Closed Loop to Balance - a consulting boutique that facilitates decision-making across sectors and stakeholders to accelerate the circular economy transition in Southeast Asia. We discussed what ‘circular economy’ means in the Vietnam context, how the informal economy already embraces circular principles like reuse and repair in contrast...

Today’s guest is Eddy Malesky, a Professor of Political Economy at Duke University who focuses on Vietnam. Eddy is also the primary author and lead researcher of the annual Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI). He played an instrumental role in the creation of the PCI in 2005 and remains heavily involved, offering great insight and nuance on the relationship between sub-national government actio...

Today’s guest is Stuart McDonald, co-founder of Travelfish and author of the excellent Couchfish newsletter. Stuart has been traveling around and writing about Southeast Asia for about three decades and is also working on a Master’s in Responsible Tourism Management. He’s written previously about sustainable tourism in Vietnam as well. Stuart recently visited Phú Quốc for the first time in a while...

Today’s guest is Nuno Ribeiro, Senior Lectu​rer of Tourism and Hospitality Management at RMIT University Vietnam. We discussed the importance of sustainable tourism development, the need for a qualified tourism workforce and Vietnam’s shortage in this area, frequent comparisons to Thailand from domestic media, factors driving the country’s dismal visitor return rate, and the understated economic i...

Today’s guest is Giles Cooper, a Partner at the international law firm Allens based in Hanoi who specializes in issues around energy policies and regulations. We discussed the pending decree on direct power purchase agreements and how this will impact major manufacturers, the dramatic change this will bring to Vietnam’s electricity market, Power Development Plan 8’s LNG and offshore wind targets,...

Today’s guest is Timen Swijtink, founder of both CoffeeTrace and Lacàph Coffees of Việt Nam .  The first half of our conversation covers CoffeeTrace, a new project aimed at providing a coffee farmer-centric EUDR data collection and traceability solution to both farmers and traders. We discuss the challenges farmers in Vietnam and other countries that export agricultural goods to the EU face in mee...

Today’s guest is Sarah Goring, Country Director for the Mines Advisory Group , or MAG. The organization is marking 25 years of operations in Vietnam, entirely in Quảng Bình and Quảng Trị. They have disposed of over 390,000 explosive items since 1999, ranging from small cluster bomblets to huge 500-pound bombs like one that was cleared in Đồng Hới in early April. We talked about the evolution of MA...

Today’s guest is Bicky Nguyen, co-founder and business development director of Cricket One , a startup aiming to create sustainable, healthy food products sourced from crickets. We discussed the company’s background and why Vietnam is the perfect base for farming insects on a large scale, the European Union’s approval of Cricket One’s products as a Novel Food and the bizarre backlash this generate...

Today’s guest is Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran, author of the excellent ASEAN Wonk newsletter, a fellow at the Wilson Center, a senior columnist at The Diplomat , and an instructor at institutions including the State Department and the Department of Defense. He has a deeply nuanced view of defense, economic, and diplomatic issues across Southeast Asia, including Vietnam. We discussed Vietnam’s ‘bambo...

According to The World Bank, trade was worth 186% of Vietnam’s GDP in 2022, one of the highest rates in the world - this means the value of the country’s traded goods is worth far more than the national GDP, currently just over $400 billion. Global logistics and shipping, therefore, are vital to continued economic growth. Today’s guest is Dr. Majo George, a senior lecturer at RMIT University Vietn...

Today’s guests are Mimi Vu and Van Ly, partners at Raise Partners , a collaborative partnership sharing expertise with organizations that contribute to the betterment of humanity. We discussed their diverse professional backgrounds, especially in fundraising, and how this brought them into the ESG space; criticisms of ESG from some corners; the importance of multi-stakeholder cooperation in addres...

Today’s guest is Trang Nguyen , Southeast Asia Lead at the Climateworks Centre in Melbourne. Her background as an economist spans the public, private, and development sectors - including the UK in Vietnam, KPMG, and GIZ - giving her unique insight into energy investment and financing. We discussed the opportunities and challenges of Vietnam’s net-zero commitment, the Just Energy Transition Partner...

Today’s guest is Mai Nguyen, a civil engineer by training who has studied and worked around the world and is currently based in Vietnam. Mai is, in her own words, an entrepreneur, a sustainability/ESG/climate resilience advisor, an occasional investor, and a work-in-progress creator. I first came across her thanks to a recent Mekong Eye article about Vietnamese architects designing climate-friendl...

Today’s guest is Nguyen Khac Giang, a Visiting Fellow at the Vietnam Studies Programme under the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute and one of the sharpest Vietnamese analysts out there. We discussed the historical context of the ‘blazing furnace,’ the unprecedented centralization and institutionalization of power that is driving the campaign, how a 2018 regulation opened the private sector up to corru...