Against a backdrop of cooling domestic growth and shifting national economic priorities, Vietnam’s largest private conglomerate Vingroup has launched an ambitious global expansion push, with nearly 24 planned projects across at least 15 countries spanning Central Asia, South Asia, Africa and Europe. This overseas pivot comes as the company’s core domestic profit driver — its flagship real estate division — faces mounting headwinds, and it seeks new revenue streams to fund its high-stakes ambitions in electric vehicles, artificial intelligence and advanced robotics, sectors that sit at the heart of Vietnam’s broader goal to emerge as Asia’s next high-growth tiger economy.
For decades, Vingroup fueled its diversification from real estate into new manufacturing and technology sectors with profits from its booming domestic property market. But that model has broken down in recent years: Vietnam’s once red-hot property sector has cooled sharply, with unaffordable home prices in major urban centers and a glut of unsold units in secondary markets pushing the company’s Vinhomes division to halt domestic land bank expansion to focus on completing existing projects. At the same time, Vingroup’s loss-making electric vehicle subsidiary VinFast, which has struggled to gain traction in saturated Western markets after its 2023 U.S. launch and Nasdaq listing, posted a $3.87 billion net loss in 2025 and recently shifted its core growth focus to emerging markets.
The expansion pushes Vingroup into a diverse range of projects tailored to local market needs. In Central Asia, where Uzbekistan has actively courted extra-regional foreign investment since loosening Soviet-era state controls in 2017, Vingroup signed a December agreement to build a mixed-use “Vietnam Town” in Tashkent, the country’s capital. Modeled after the conglomerate’s successful domestic developments, the project will integrate residential housing, retail centers, healthcare facilities, schools and electric vehicle charging infrastructure. This focus on Central Asia aligns with Vietnam’s own growing regional trade ties: bilateral trade between Vietnam and Uzbekistan grew 26.5% to $202 million in 2024, and Vietnam upgraded its partnership with Kazakhstan to a strategic partnership in 2025. Regional analysts note Central Asian nations are actively diversifying trade partners beyond Russia following its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, and are eager to balance growing Chinese investment with deeper ties to other dynamic Asian economies.
In South Asia, Vingroup is building on rapidly growing bilateral ties between Vietnam and India, where total trade tripled from $5.4 billion in 2016 to a record $16.4 billion in 2025. The conglomerate’s Indian portfolio already includes a VinFast EV factory in Tamil Nadu, an electric taxi service launched in New Delhi in June, and signed agreements for smart city developments, hospitals, schools, a theme park and a zoo across multiple states. It has also expanded into Southeast Asia, with an EV factory under construction in Indonesia and an electric taxi service already operating in the Philippines.
Across Africa, Vingroup is pursuing large-scale infrastructure and e-mobility projects to tap into fast-growing demand for zero-emission transport and urban development. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the company has agreed to develop a 6,300-hectare riverfront smart city between the Congo River and Kinshasa’s international airport, while VinFast plans to supply hundreds of thousands of EVs and electric buses to support the DRC’s national plan to replace its fossil fuel vehicle fleet. In West Africa, Vingroup has partnered with Ghana’s Jospong Group to distribute VinFast’s electric cars, scooters, bicycles and buses across the region. Analysts point to Ghana as a particularly strategic market for VinFast, thanks to its eight-year EV tax incentive guarantee, 35-million-plus population, established car market and limited competition from Chinese EV manufacturers.
In Europe, Vingroup’s plans include a facility to develop motors and moving components for industrial robotics in Germany, rounding out its global footprint across emerging and developed markets.
Vingroup’s global push aligns with a broader shift in Vietnam’s national economic strategy. For decades, the country lifted millions out of poverty through an export-led growth model heavily dependent on a small number of key foreign markets, with the U.S. accounting for more than 30% of total Vietnamese exports. But that model came under severe strain after former U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Chinese and Vietnamese goods, exposing the risks of over-reliance on a handful of export destinations. In a recent speech at the Shangri-La Dialogue, Communist Party General Secretary To Lam acknowledged the shift, noting that “growth is slowing. Public debt and the cost of capital are rising. Climate change is threatening the livelihoods of hundreds of millions. Disruptive technologies create immense opportunities, but also new divides.” Like China before it, Vietnam now aims to build homegrown globally competitive corporations that can drive the next phase of national economic growth.
Vingroup’s leadership is betting that its tested domestic business model — starting with large-scale real estate development, then adding complementary community infrastructure such as hospitals, schools and retail before expanding into consumer goods like EVs — can be replicated in other developing economies at similar stages of growth. The company’s founder Pham Nhat Vuong first built his fortune manufacturing instant noodles in 1990s Ukraine before pivoting to large-scale housing development in Vietnam, growing the conglomerate into the country’s largest private sector player through this iterative integrated development strategy.
Despite its ambitious plans, the expansion faces significant potential obstacles. Analysts note that many large megaprojects in the DRC never move beyond the initial agreement stage, and the country’s weak infrastructure, limited widespread smartphone penetration and lower average incomes may limit demand for the type of integrated urban development Vingroup plans to build. Even as VinFast has shifted to emerging markets, it will also face growing competition from established global and regional players as it scales up its operations across multiple continents.