Asset Management

Vietnam’s biggest airport opens in 2026. The private money will follow the cargo, not the terminal.

Phase one of Long Thanh International Airport is built to handle 25 million passengers and 1.2 million tonnes of cargo a year, on a project that runs past $16bn across three phases. The state owns and runs the terminal.

What it means. The opportunity sits outside the fence: warehouses, cold storage, fuel supply, staff housing and the roads that connect them. These are smaller, contracted assets that private owners can build and run, and land near the airport will reprice quickly once flights start.

A $5bn transshipment port won approval in April. The sponsors are putting up 15%.

VIMC, Saigon Port and MSC’s terminal arm TiL received investor approval for the Can Gio International Transshipment Port, planned for 4.8 million containers a year by 2030. The consortium funds 15% of the cost; the rest has to be raised.

What it means. That gap is the story. Raising more than $4bn of debt and minority equity for one port will test how far Vietnamese banks can lend long, and how much foreign capital will take on a state-led project. Its outcome will set the template for the large projects behind it.

Line 2 broke ground in January, and the land around its stops will change first.

Metro Line 2 runs 11.3 km from Ben Thanh to Tham Luong, mostly underground, at a cost of about VND 55 trillion ($2.1bn). Construction started in January 2026; service is targeted for around 2030.

What it means. Rail itself stays public. The private opportunity is in the land around the stations: offices, homes and retail planned together with each stop. Ho Chi Minh City is preparing rules to let developers share in that value, and whoever moves first on station sites will set the prices.

EVN’s first storage programme is 305 MW. The national plan calls for up to 16,300 MW by 2030.

State utility EVN has begun its first battery storage programme, starting with a 50 MW / 100 MWh pilot in Hanoi. The revised national power plan targets 10,000 to 16,300 MW of storage by the end of the decade.

What it means. EVN cannot fund that alone. Most of the storage will have to come from private owners, often built beside solar and wind farms that already sell their power. The rules for how batteries get paid are the missing piece, and investors who understand them early will have the best sites.

A $2bn campus leads a pipeline expected to reach 600 MW by 2030.

A data-centre campus backed by G42, FPT and VinaCapital heads a wave of projects aimed at Vietnam. Capacity is expected to grow to nearly 600 MW by 2030, according to industry estimates.

What it means. Servers are easy to ship; reliable power and clean land title are not. Sites near a strong grid connection, with room to expand, will be scarce and priced that way. The substations and power lines that serve them may prove the steadier investment.

The 519 km Circuit 3 more than doubled the power the north can draw from the centre.

The 500 kV Circuit 3 line from Quang Trach to Pho Noi was energised in August 2024, lifting transfer capacity from the central region to the north from about 2,200 MW to 5,000 MW, at a cost of about VND 22.3 trillion.

What it means. It showed how fast Vietnam can build when the state makes a project a priority. For investors, the lesson is to follow the wires: new generation and industrial demand settle where transmission is secured, and the next priority lines are already named in the national plan.