A quick note before we go quiet for a bit: I'll be traveling September 3-13, so there won't be live reporting during that stretch -- no breaking-news coverage of the kind you usually get here. You may still hear from us with something shorter and more reference-oriented. Regular coverage resumes the week of September 14.

In the meantime: what's the one term, acronym, or piece of Vietnam trade jargon you keep seeing in this newsletter (or anywhere else) that nobody's actually explained to you? Reply to this email or write in at [email protected] -- I'm collecting questions to answer in one of the pieces I'm prepping while I'm away. Now, for this week’s Mekong Memo.

Vietnam's Ministry of Industry and Trade published its second annual FTA Index on August 18, an official self-assessment of how well provinces turn the country's 17 free trade agreements into results businesses can use. The national average fell to 21.66 out of 40, down from 26.20 in the first index, published in April 2025 (MOIT, Aug 18; VGP, Apr 9, 2025). Read alone, that looks like a country losing ground on implementation.

The two years measure different countries. Between the two surveys, Vietnam carried out its largest administrative overhaul in decades. National Assembly Resolution 202/2025/QH15, passed June 12, 2025 and operational from July 1, cut the country's provincial-level units from 63 to 34. The 2024 index graded 63 localities; the 2025 index graded 34. The FTA Index's own website states plainly that because names, boundaries, and the count of localities all changed, no single locality's 2025 score can be measured against its 2024 score -- that comparison begins in 2026.

The clearest illustration sits at the top of the table. This year's leader, Hải Phòng, scored 35.62 and is the only locality rated "very good." But the Hải Phòng graded in 2025 absorbed neighboring Hải Dương province in the July 2025 merger -- it carries the old name over a larger jurisdiction, not the same one. The pattern runs the other direction too: 2024's top scorer, the old Cà Mau, hit 34.90; the new Cà Mau, formed by merging Cà Mau with Bạc Liêu -- 2024's own eighth-place finisher -- scored 29.10 in 2025, a rank-five finish covering a substantially larger area and population.

For a buyer running supplier diligence off this index, or an exporter checking a province's standing, the name on the scorecard may no longer describe the boundary a shipment actually left. Standing Deputy PM Phạm Gia Túc has called on localities to publish action plans responding to their 2025 results, tying each finding to a responsible agency and a deadline. The next real read on whether implementation is improving arrives with the 2026 index -- the first edition the government says will support a genuine before-and-after comparison.

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Mekong Brief is a biweekly newsletter on Vietnam trade policy, agricultural markets, and market entry intelligence. Subscribe at mekongbrief.com.

Published by Kimmi Võ, Mangrove Strategies.