US, france failed to colonise Vietnam. They should learn from PAP

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From farmland to factory floor: Vietnam-Singapore industrial parks gear up for next chapter​

Facilities under the joint venture are moving from labour-intensive growth to high-tech, green goals

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Jamille Tran​

Published Thu, Apr 23, 2026 · 01:16 PM
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• VSIP has now grown to 22 parks spanning nearly 12,000 hectares across 15 provinces and cities, with a plan to raise the total to 30 in 2026. PHOTO: VSIP

[HO CHI MINH CITY] On a humid stretch of farmland 17 km north of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnamese and Singaporean officials gathered in 1996 to launch what was then an untested idea in Vietnam: a jointly run industrial park designed to attract foreign manufacturers to the newly opened economy.

The first facility under the Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park (VSIP) initiative began with just 500 hectares (ha) – modest in scale, but ambitious in intent.

In 1995, Vietnam had normalised diplomatic ties with the US, formally ending decades of hostility with the world’s largest economy.


It had also become the seventh member of Asean that same year, marking the beginning of the country’s push towards industrialisation, modernisation and global integration.

Singapore, meanwhile, was pursuing a regionalisation strategy, using state-led infrastructure projects and incentives to encourage private companies to expand abroad. Central to this effort was the development of overseas industrial parks, including the Batamindo Industrial Park in Indonesia (1990) and the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park (1994).

Three decades on, that experiment in Vietnam – anchored by a joint venture between Vietnam’s Becamex IDC and Singapore’s Sembcorp Development – has evolved into the country’s largest industrial park platform.