Just 50 or so years ago, the Vietnamese people were still killing each other. After having kicked French and American ass, the Communist North and the American puppet South locked horns. With the support of the great majority of the people under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh (affectionately called Uncle Ho by his people) and the military genius of General Giap Vo Nguyen, Saigon fell in 1975. The year after, Vietnam was unified.

In contrast, we have been an independent nation since 1945, a 31-year headstart. We had Southeast Asia’s first national railway, airline, bus lines, light rail transit, integrated steel mills and shipbuilding facilities. Up to the 1970s, we were a regional heavyweight militarily.

Now we’re bottom dwellers. Vietnam had the fastest economic growth rate last year at 8 percent. From one of the poorest ASEAN countries in 1990, it is now the region’s third-largest economy. It overtook ours four years ago and is now in the upper-middle-income status. In another four years, it is projected to attain high-middle income status, leaving our country in the dust.

Part of the reason is a conglomerate called the Vingroup. Founded in 1993 by Phat Nam Vuong, who started out making noodles as a refugee in Ukraine, it has become the biggest car maker and real estate developer in Vietnam.

With headquarters in the Vietnamese capital of Hanoi, it’s into a lot: universities (VinUni), hospitals (VinMec), residential and leisure (VinHomes/VinCity, VinPearl), commercial space leasing (Vin Office), retail (VinCom) and electric vehicles (VinFast). Since it is into renewables, it doesn’t sell fossil fuels. So, sorry guys, there is no Vin Diesel.

Not only is Vingroup into the above businesses, but it is into them in a grand manner. One of their developments sits on a 400-hectare property just outside Hanoi, with clustered smart housing with their own malls, restaurants, groceries and other facilities.

Vin University sprawls on 23 hectares, while VicMec has hospitals in three cities aside from Hanoi, with 6,728 hospital beds. Both have state-of-the-art facilities amounting to billions of dollars in investments, and have such imposing and iconic structures that would put many European buildings to shame. I saw them with my own two eyes — they were awe-inspiring!

While it had to take the American war against Iran to shock our country into shifting to electric vehicles (EV) only this month, Vuong’s VinFast had foreseen the future and, as early as 2017, had geared up for the production of Vietnamese vehicles — including EVs — for the world market. In 2022, VinFast stopped producing internal combustion engines for its vehicles and concentrated exclusively on EVs, which are now sold in more than 10 countries, including the United States, Canada, the European Union and, yes, the Philippines.

Speaking of which, in our country, VinFast is the leader in EV taxis, thanks to the efforts of Green GSM global chief executive officer Nguyen Van Thanh (a.k.a. Steve), aided by his Philippine CEO, Mr. Phi Dao, his lovely executive assistant Jia Chau Anh Nguyen (everybody’s crushie) and their local partner Alexander Mitterdan Cruz (rotund and affable).

Vingroup’s rapid growth from noodles to one of the biggest conglomerates in the region has really been fast. Truly, what our country needs for it to grow is less mercenaries and more visionaries such as Mr. Vuong, who is now the richest man in ASEAN.