HANOI, Vietnam – Vietnam rose one place to 43rd among 139 economies in the Global Innovation Index released Tuesday, reinforcing its position among the developing world’s stronger innovation performers. The result also exposes a central challenge: translating success in global manufacturing into deeper technological capabilities at home.
The country remained second among lower-middle-income economies, behind India, and third in Southeast Asia, after Singapore and Malaysia. Its innovation outputs climbed two places to 35th, helping Vietnam meet the government’s ranking target for 2026.
Export Strength, Uneven Foundations
Vietnam again ranked first in high-tech exports and creative-goods exports as shares of total trade. These measures highlight the composition of its trade rather than leadership in absolute export volumes. WIPO also recognized Vietnam and India for delivering innovation results above expectations for their development levels for 16 consecutive years.
Yet the foundations supporting those results remain less competitive. Vietnam’s innovation-input ranking fell from 50th to 54th, according to same-day reporting by VietNamNet. That category measures the institutions, skills, infrastructure and financing on which future advances depend.
WIPO’s broader assessment identifies the imbalance directly: Vietnam and the Philippines have progressed through manufacturing and trade while continuing to lag in domestic invention. Further gains will require stronger research systems and wider creation of new knowledge.
Hanoi Sees Its Reforms Taking Hold
Science and Technology Minister Vũ Hải Quân welcomed the improvement in innovation outputs as an early indication that increased investment and policy changes were producing results. He linked the gains to the implementation of Resolution 57, the government’s wider push to advance science, technology, innovation and digital transformation, according to Dân Trí.
The minister also called for stronger technical skills, more scientific publications and patents, and greater business participation in research. Vietnam is targeting a place among the index’s top 40 economies by 2030 and its top 30 by 2045, government reporting said.
The ranking alone cannot establish how much recent reforms contributed. WIPO cautions that annual comparisons reflect changes in data and methodology as well as performance, and that the underlying indicators draw on multiple years. The improvement is encouraging evidence, but an incomplete measure of policy effectiveness.
The Test Is Value Created at Home
Earlier this month, Võ Xuân Hoài, deputy director of Vietnam’s National Innovation Centre, identified technological capabilities, specialized workers and domestic companies’ access to higher-value activities as persistent weaknesses. His assessment underscores the practical obstacles behind the rankings.
International analysis points in the same direction. In its May 2026 economic update, the World Bank argued that sustained growth would depend on retaining more value domestically, strengthening connections between foreign-invested and Vietnamese firms, and raising productivity. That assessment predates Tuesday’s index.
The implication is that Vietnam’s next phase of progress will depend on how effectively its factories, universities and businesses develop and commercialize technology—and how widely those capabilities spread through the domestic economy.