Ho Chi Minh City (VNA) – The Autumn Economic Forum (AEF) 2026 creates a shared thinking space that connects economies into value chains and sets a modern, long-range development vision, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee Nguyen Van Duoc addressed the closing session after two days of its main events.
The forum runs from October 26-29 in Ho Chi Minh City under the theme “The Spirit of Cooperation in a New Era”.
Duoc said the forum marks a leap in international scale, drawing more than 1,500 official delegates from 60 countries and territories, including government leaders, global CEOs, experts and representatives of innovation hubs and major companies.
Over three working days, more than 20 in-depth sessions and dozens of technology showcases produced concrete results, showing cooperation moves beyond vision into substantive links and action. The sessions generated strategic insights and recast thinking on new growth forces, core drivers and breakthrough cooperation models as the global economy shifts deeply.
He said the task is not to develop isolated factors but to build an integrated ecosystem where economic centres, big cities and global corporate networks interact to turn knowledge into production capacity, optimise value chains and widen room for sustainable growth.
International cooperation must therefore move from one-off opportunity matching to strategic network links, value chain shaping and new growth momentum, using megacities as bridges across global economic axes from Northeast Asia and ASEAN to the America and Oceania.
The focus is on large firms leading closer links with SMEs, supporting industries and the innovation ecosystem, across smart manufacturing, logistics, green transition and digital economy to sharpen Vietnamese firms’ competitiveness and deepen their role in global supply chains.
Ho Chi Minh City wants substantive cooperation in which financial institutions, international investors and big companies jointly connect capital to strategic development axes, from smart industry and green transition to the digital economy, in megacities, Duoc said, adding that the city pledges three breakthrough priorities, including institutional reform and pilot breakthrough mechanisms; quality, global-standard manpower to master technology; and strategic integration via public-private partnerships and global capital for R&D and high tech.
The city will turn AEF 2026 initiatives and connections into specific schemes and projects, contributing actively and substantively to new growth drivers in the region and the world, he said.
The main forum ran from October 27-28 with co-branding from the World Economic Forum. The October 28 strategic dialogue featured a high-level plenary “The Convergence of New Global Growth Engines”, and a dialogue with the Vietnamese Prime Minister themed “Positioning Vietnam in the Global Future”, plus a plenary and ministerial dialogue.
On October 27, AEF 2026 held 16 thematic sessions on “AI-Quantum,” “Finance-Digital Economy-Autonomy” and “Manufacturing-Sustainability-New Generation”. Two were co-branded with WEF, including “Repositioning Vietnam-ASEAN in the Global Value Chain” and another on from AI deployment to preparing workforce for the future of manufacturing.
AEF 2026 also hosted international conferences on dual transition, digital and green transition for key industries toward carbon neutrality; a tech and innovation showcase, Open Innovation Day 2026, CEO 500 programme, and bilateral investment promotion seminars./.
