Vietnam today stands before a new development opportunity. We have an important geostrategic position, a hardworking and ambitious people, a young workforce, deep and broad integration capabilities, and a stable foundation for transformation.
But in a rapidly changing world, the key question is no longer just how hard we work, but whether the country’s operating model is capable of helping social resources be unblocked and operate efficiently.
That is precisely the story of institutions.
When mentioning institutions, many people immediately think of debates about political models or ideologies. But from a national perspective, institutions should first be understood more practically: they are how a society organizes power, laws, and operating mechanisms to serve development.
In that sense, the core of institutions lies not in names, but in the capacity to organize society and the ability to allocate resources efficiently for the nation.
If we compare the economy to a large field, then institutions are like an irrigation system. Water may be abundant, but if the canals are blocked, misdirected, or leaking along the way, the fields will still be dry.
National resources are the same. A country may have great potential, capital, and talent, but if the operating system is not reasonable, resources will not flow to where they create the highest value.
The development history of many nations, ultimately, is the history of the ability to channel social resources.
Resources here are not just capital or natural resources, but also intelligence, talent, time, social trust, investment opportunities, and people’s creative energy.
A country may have smart, hardworking, and ambitious people. But if capable people have no opportunity to contribute, businesses find it hard to access resources, creativity is not encouraged, or capital does not flow to where it creates the highest value, then society will suffer from blocked development momentum.
Conversely, when the operating system is reasonable and builds trust, society will automatically mobilize huge resources. People will naturally bring their abilities, capital, creativity, and ambition to where they create the highest value.
In that process, the private economic sector plays a particularly important role because it is often the most flexible, most sensitive to market signals, and has the fastest ability to adjust resources according to actual needs.
This dynamism helps the economy adapt better to changes in technology, markets, and social needs.
Therefore, an effective institution is not one that seeks to replace the market, but one that creates conditions for the private sector, creativity, and healthy competition to become important drivers for growth and innovation.
In other words, a facilitative government is not a machine that does the market’s job, but a system capable of designing reasonable “rules of the game” so that resources move efficiently within society.
The state plays the role of ensuring stability, social justice, security, rule of law, and building trust in the operating system.
If an institution is designed effectively, that system itself will become a very strong driver for fast and sustainable growth. This is also the foundation that helped many East Asian countries maintain double-digit growth rates for a long time.
The General Secretary and President To Lam, in a recent working session with the Central Policy and Strategy Committee and related agencies on assessing the country’s development resources, showed a very clear determination to find and establish a new growth model to achieve the goal of double-digit economic growth in the coming period.
This is not just a story of increasing GDP, but essentially the problem of reorganizing national resources so that the country enters a new development phase with higher productivity, greater efficiency, and more sustainability.
When the leadership has shown such strong political determination, what is most needed is how to apply methods to utilize, use, and allocate resources reasonably for development in line with Vietnam’s actual conditions and the world’s trends.
Knowing what is right to do is not difficult. Having the determination to do what needs to be done correctly is what creates the difference in class between nations.
And the window of opportunity will not remain open waiting for us forever.
<div class="
