# Corruption in Vietnam

"none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see [[WP:SDNONE]]
Political corruption :
Forms and concepts :
Abuse of power
Bribery
Censorship
Political repression
Political violence
Cronyism
Economics of corruption
Election interference
Electoral fraud
Elite capture
Influence peddling
Insider trading
Iron triangle
Judicial
Kleptocracy
In local government
Mafia state
Malfeasance
Misfeasance
Nepotism
Politically exposed person
Pyrrhic defeat theory
Revolving door
Slush fund
Simony
Suspicious activity report
State capture
State-corporate crime
Throffer :
Anti-corruption :
International Anti-Corruption Court
Group of States Against Corruption
International Anti-Corruption Academy
International Anti-Corruption Day
United Nations Convention against Corruption :
Corruption by country :
vte :
Corruption in Vietnam is pervasive and widespread, due to weak legal infrastructure, financial unpredictability, and conflicting and negative bureaucratic decision-making. Surveys from 2015 revealed that while petty corruption decreased slightly throughout the country, high-level corruption significantly increased as a means of abuse of political power in Vietnam. Corruption is a very significant problem in Vietnam, impacting all aspects of administration, education and law enforcement.
Vietnam is an authoritarian one-party state under the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV). In 2015, the party claimed that corruption had moved up the political agenda, and the legal framework for tackling corruption had become "better developed". However, political academics have cited that such efforts are likely a cover for a political purge between factions of the party.
As of January 2018 Vietnam scored one of the highest rates of bribery practices – the rate citizens have paid a bribe to key public institutions over the past 12 months, at 65%, is second only to corruption in India with 69%. In effect, as of 2012, corruption has been considered an obstacle for doing business in Vietnam, and the use of facilitation payments have been widespread when dealing with frontline civil servants at all levels of society.

## Ranking

Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index, which scored 180 countries on a scale from 0 ("highly corrupt") to 100 ("very clean"), gave Vietnam a score of 41. When ranked by score, Vietnam ranked 83rd among the 180 countries in the Index, where the country ranked first is perceived to have the most honest public sector. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90 (ranked 1), the average score was 43, and the worst score was 11 (ranked 180). For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among the countries of the Asia Pacific region was 85, the average score was 45 and the lowest score was 17.

## Pervasiveness

Surveys from 2015 revealed that while petty corruption decreased slightly throughout the country, high-level corruption or systemic and political corruption significantly increased as a means of abuse of political power in Vietnam. As of January 2018 Vietnam scored one of the highest rates of bribery practices – the rate citizens have paid a bribe to key public institutions over the past 12 months, at 65%, is second only to Corruption in India with 69%.

## Effect

Vietnam is a developing country of about 96 million people as of 2018. As of 2012, corruption was considered an obstacle for doing business in Vietnam, and the use of facilitation payments have been widespread when dealing with frontline civil servants at all levels of society.
Due to the international view of corruption in Vietnam, in 2020, foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam stood at only US$28.5 billion, far below its ASEAN neighbours.

## Government anti-corruption efforts

In 2016, the ongoing "blazing furnace" (đốt lò) anti-corruption campaign was started by Nguyễn Phú Trọng, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
In 2021, the Vietnamese government claimed that it had taken stronger efforts to combat corruption.

### Officials implicated by the anti-corruption campaigns

* Đinh La Thăng: former Minister of Transport, former Communist Party Secretary of Ho Chi Minh City, and former member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Vietnam.
* Nguyễn Đức Chung: former Major General of the Vietnam People's Public Security and Vietnamese politician. He is a former Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee.
* Nguyễn Thanh Long: Minister of Health from July 2020 until his removal from the Communist Party of Vietnam in June 2022 for involvement in the Việt Á scandal.
* Trịnh Xuân Thanh: Former Vietnamese politician and businessman. He is the former head of the state-owned Petrovietnam Construction Joint Stock Corporation (a subsidiary of Petrovietnam) and the former Deputy-Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee of Hậu Giang.
* Nguyễn Xuân Phúc: Former President of Vietnam implicated in the Việt Á scandal, resigned on January 23, 2023
* Dương Bá Thanh Dân: Director of the Department of Medical Supplies at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, in the Southeastern Province of Ninh Thuan, and his employee Nguyễn Đăng Đức.
* Đào Hữu Long: Director of Thua Thien Hue Provincial Registration Center.
* Tô Anh Dũng: Former Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, (and seven other former officials at the foreign ministry) due to allegedly receiving bribes up to $908,000 to add companies to a list of providers of repatriation flights during COVID 19 epidemic.