A delegation of representatives from 52 US businesses recently visited Vietnam, the largest-ever mission from the country to Vietnam and including Meta executives. How do you view the potential in Vietnam for Meta?

Vietnam is and has always been a very important country for Meta. As the new Southeast Asian tiger economy, it has shown robust growth over the last few years and emerged at the forefront of international trade.

In 2022, according to Bain & Company, there were 60 million digital consumers in the country, or 80 per cent of the population aged 15 and over. Growth has steadied since the pandemic years, and that means opportunity outweighs the growing uncertainty.

Furthermore, with a young population of 100 million and a median age of 30 years old, Vietnam is poised to take the lead in the digital economy in Southeast Asia.

Vietnam’s pool of talent is young and hardworking and has an appetite for new technologies and innovation and can learn very quickly.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are central to the country’s economic growth and contribute significantly to job creation, export promotion, and poverty reduction.

As such, we are committed to helping unlock growth for Vietnam as it moves toward growing its position as an innovative digital economy through Industry 4.0.

What are the opportunities when investing in Vietnam?

For Meta, Vietnam is not just a market with a population of 100 million but also a market with strong connectivity and young and creative residents. It is one of the leading countries in the world in business messaging, and has huge potential for growth.

According to a study released by Meta and the Boston Consulting Group in 2022, 73 per cent of Vietnamese consumers surveyed use business messaging to reach out to businesses. That is why we are also bringing a Business Messaging Summit to Vietnam this year to help business to grow, so stay tuned for more details.

As I mentioned above, SMEs are major drivers of Vietnam’s economic growth. as 98 per cent of the country’s economy is fueled by its amazing SMEs. They have a strong appetite for new technology adoption, and we believe Vietnam will benefit from Meta’s latest investment in technology, in particular AI and discovery engine. We are investing heavily in AI to develop and deploy privacy-enhancing technologies and continue building new tools that will fundamentally enable us to deliver more performing and privacy-safe ads to advertisers. In the last quarter, advertisers saw over 20 per cent more conversions than the year before.

What about the challenges?

I think the competition is fiercer than ever before now that people have more options in social media. However, I think this kind of competition is good for the ecosystem. It drives innovation and better services for people. We have spent more than a decade building the most powerful discovery engine in history, one that generates connections between people, demand for businesses, and interest in brands.

Across Feed, Stories, Reels, Watch, Marketplace, Messaging, VR, and creator content - people aren’t coming on to our apps for any one thing. They are coming for all of it.

I am confident that our apps will continue to be the best places for people and communities to connect and for advertisers to reach people where they can gain measurable outcomes long into the future.

During the visit, you said that Meta will work with Vietnam on digital transformation. What are your plans to support the country in this process?

Meta is a committed and active partner of Vietnam’s digital economy. It serves as co-chair of the Digital Economy and Technology Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam. We are also a leading partner in the Digital Economy Taskforce between the US-ASEAN Business Council and the Vietnamese Government.

In order to enable a landscape for the digital economy, the government should take a holistic approach to regulations and support the free flow of information.

Meta has been working closely with the Ministry of Information and Communications (MoIC) on the national digital transformation strategy, contributing to the development of a digital economy and digital society by 2025.

Since 2017, in cooperation with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI) and other partners, Meta has provided training in digital transformation to 85,000 SMEs.

In 2022, together with the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), Meta launched the Vietnam Innovation Challenge. This is an annual challenge to seek global innovative solutions to address Vietnam’s national issues. The topic of the 2022 Vietnam Innovation Challenge was digital transformation for enterprises in Vietnam. We are committed to continuing this partnership in the years to come.

From February 2020, Meta supported the portal of the Vietnamese Government and the Ministry of Health (MoH) to promptly promote accurate information on Covid-19. In 2021, Meta helped the ministry run the media campaign on vaccinations, which attracted over 60,000 reactions, 116 million views, and nearly 40 million views on Facebook.

Since 2019, through the “We Think Digital” program established by Meta, over 3,500 teachers in secondary and high schools and 580,000 students in 39 cities and provinces have been trained on digital skills and online safety.

Tourism in Vietnam suffered tremendously during Covid-19. In 2020, together with MPI, Meta launched a campaign to promote investment in tourism in the country. In 2020-2021, it launched the “Video for Vietnam - Viet Nam Trong Toi” campaign to promote the beauty of Vietnam and its people. The campaign is cooperating with more than 160 Vietnamese and international artists. In 2023, Meta will bring a new program to promote Vietnam’s tourism and gastronomy, and broadcast on Facebook and other online platforms. Meta will invite creators from across Asia to different cities in Vietnam to participate in the series. This project will not just help boost the country’s tourism industry but also support the creator economy and involve young creators.

As I mentioned, business messaging is the key focus, and that’s why we are excited to bring the Business Messaging Summit to Vietnam this year.

The Vietnamese Government has committed to helping US enterprises expand their operations in the country and to creating favorable conditions for Vietnamese enterprises to take part in their value chains. What do you think about this commitment?

In my conversations with different government agencies, it is very clear that digital innovation is a key concern in ministries and agencies. The government is proactively asking Meta to share our international experience as co-chair of the Digital Economy and Technology Committee of American Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam. We also play a leading role in the Digital Economy taskforce between the US ASEAN Business Council and the government, represented by the MoIC.

Meta partners with various government agencies to promote innovation and the digital economy, the startup ecosystem, post-pandemic economic recovery, and training on digital skills for government agencies, businesses, and schools throughout the country.

We would like to congratulate the government, especially the MoIC, on the initiative launched on February 24 to support “Vietnamese technology companies to go global”. This reflects a holistic approach by the government to offer support and to coordinate policies to enable Vietnamese digital technology companies to go global. This also helps develop better digital cooperation and trusted partnerships between Vietnamese companies and global companies in the digital world. Key to this initiative by the government and the bilateral partnership between the US and Vietnam in the digital economy is to maintain an open and free internet with an enabling regulatory framework for businesses to grow and to ensure the user experience and safety.