Việt Nam’s Resolution 68: Economic Driver or a ‘Get-Out-of-Jail’ Card for Tycoons?

On May 4, 2025, the Politburo issued Resolution No. 68 regarding private-sector economic development. [1] Analysts widely viewed this directive as a turning point in the Communist Party of Việt Nam’s economic policymaking. It also served as an early political hallmark for Tô Lâm, who had been general secretary for only nine months at the time.

With Tô Lâm recently re-elected as general secretary and now concurrently serving as president, the resolution is drawing renewed public scrutiny. Observing its practical application provides crucial insights into the governing style of the successor to Nguyễn Phú Trọng.

Moving forward, two primary questions emerge: has this policy genuinely stimulated economic momentum over the past year, and has it inadvertently created loopholes or risks, as evidenced by its application in the criminal cases of Trịnh Văn Quyết and Nguyễn Thị Như Loan?

Easier Said Than Done

By declaring the private sector “the most important driving force of the national economy,” the Politburo’s Resolution 68 marked a significant shift in economic thinking. It pushed the “ghost” of the socialist collective economy into the background, placing the nation’s economic future squarely in the hands of private enterprises.

While this move represents a notable policy advancement, the transition from paper to practice is fraught with challenges. One year later, the anticipated economic transformation has still not been delivered by the resolution. 

Large conglomerates like Vingroup and Sun Group remain the primary beneficiaries, enjoying effortless access to resources, land, and preferential treatment. National Assembly Chairman Trần Thanh Mẫn has even cited these corporations as models for the nation’s development. [2]

Conversely, small and medium-sized enterprises—the actual backbone of the economy—continue to navigate a tangled and unstable legal maze. They are subjected to constant turbulence from the government’s arbitrary regulatory shifts. 

A clear example occurred when Decree 46 and Resolution 66.13 were unexpectedly issued on Jan. 26, 2026. Taking immediate effect without implementing guidelines, the abrupt legal change left hundreds of thousands of tons of goods, mostly agricultural products, stranded at border checkpoints. [3]

Facing supply chain disruptions and massive financial losses, a wave of domestic companies pleaded for intervention. Just one week later, the government was forced to delay the enforcement of both documents. 

Small household businesses faced similar whiplash from shifting tax policies; traders accustomed to cash and handwritten ledgers were suddenly forced into electronic invoicing while scrambling to avoid tax penalties.

Beyond these policy issues, the broader market metrics offer little optimism. Resolution 68 set a target of two million active enterprises nationwide by 2030. However, by the end of 2025, Việt Nam had only around 1.1 million. Meeting the target requires creating 900,000 businesses over the next five years, or roughly 140,000 annually.

In 2025 alone, around 297,000 enterprises newly established themselves or resumed operations, while 227,000 exited the market. [4] This resulted in a net increase of just 70,000—exactly half of the annual pace required to fulfill the ambitions of Resolution 68. [5]

These figures reflect a familiar pattern in Việt Nam’s governance: talking still comes easier than doing. While the private sector appears to have the green light, only a handful of major corporations actually benefit from special mechanisms. The vast majority of domestic businesses must operate while looking over their shoulders, fully aware that the legal landscape could shift at a moment’s notice.

A “Get-Out-of-Jail” Card?

Beyond its economic impact, Resolution 68 significantly changes how authorities handle economic crimes. Section 2.3 of Chapter III of the resolution prioritizes the remediation of economic damage, establishing financial restitution as a crucial factor in determining criminal sanctions. In simple terms, the recovery of lost assets is now the primary goal, which subsequently dictates the severity of the sentence.

While the resolution explicitly calls for amendments to criminal, civil, and procedural laws to formalize this approach, the judicial system has been eager to implement its spirit immediately—sometimes stretching beyond the limits of existing legislation.

This eagerness has sparked fears that aggressive application of the resolution could transform it into a “get-out-of-jail card” for wealthy tycoons. It risks fostering a system where all are equal before the law, but some are demonstrably more equal. These concerns have already materialized in the high-profile cases of FLC Group chairman Trịnh Văn Quyết and Quốc Cường Gia Lai CEO Nguyễn Thị Như Loan.

Following his arrest on March 29, 2022, for fraud and stock market manipulation, Trịnh Văn Quyết received a combined 21-year prison sentence at his first-instance trial in August 2024.

However, during the appellate trial, his sentence was slashed to just seven years after he and his family paid 2.47 trillion đồng (approximately US$98.8 million) in full compensation. Citing severe illness and a “very high risk of death,” Quyết did not even appear in court for the proceedings. This landmark decision was widely recognized as the first instance of a court applying the spirit of Resolution 68 to an economic crime. [6]

Shockingly, by early January 2026—less than four years post-arrest—domestic media reported that Quyết had quietly returned to the business world. Newspapers carefully omitted any mention of his prison term, and no official explanation was offered for his premature release. Regardless of the specific legal provision or clemency decision used, Quyết effectively secured a 17-year reduction from his original sentence, an outcome unprecedented in Việt Nam’s criminal justice history.

The case of Nguyễn Thị Như Loan is ostensibly more transparent, yet it remains equally questionable. Prosecuted for a particularly serious crime under Clause 3, Article 219 of the 2015 Penal Code, Loan faced a mandatory prison sentence of 10 to 20 years. However, after paying 284 billion đồng (approximately 11.4 million USD) to remedy most of the damage, she walked away with an 18-month suspended sentence.

The court justified the leniency by combining the spirit of Resolution 68 [7] with Articles 51 and 54 of the Penal Code, reducing her penalty by two entire sentencing brackets. The controversy lies in Article 54, which restricts such drastic leniency to first-time offenders who acted as accomplices with an insignificant role.

While categorized as an assisting accomplice, the facts suggest Loan’s role was far from insignificant. She supplied hundreds of billions of đồng in bribes to other defendants to convert public land into private property for her own acquisition. 

By subsequently transferring that land, she generated over 300 billion đồng (approximately more than 12 million USD) in illicit profits. Declaring her role minor enough to qualify for leniency [8] under Clause 2 of Article 54 remains deeply unconvincing.

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These two cases and their surrounding legal ambiguities raise a fundamental question: if a criminal amasses hundreds or even thousands of billions of đồng over many years and then simply returns the money, should that guarantee a drastically reduced sentence or an escape from prison entirely? One must ask if such an outcome is truly compatible with the principles of fairness and equality before the law.

Fundamentally, the law must ensure both deterrence and universal fairness. Granting exceptions to business elites merely for the sake of asset recovery or economic development risks undermining this equality and eroding the law’s deterrent power.

A rule-of-law society cannot function on conditional exceptions. More importantly, it cannot elevate the spirit of a Party resolution above the law itself.

Ultimately, the application of Resolution 68 in criminal proceedings must stay within the boundaries of existing legislation. While concepts like prioritizing restitution are important, they must be correctly understood and applied so they do not become a shield for elite criminals that weakens the rigor and integrity of the justice system.

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Trần Ngọc wrote this article in Vietnamese and published it in Luật Khoa Magazine on May 4, 2026. Đàm Vĩnh Hằng translated it into English for The Vietnamese Magazine.