This paper examines the role of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) have played in
Vietnam’s exports in 1995-2014. Economy-wide estimates suggest MNE share of Vietnam’s
export grew from about one quarter to about two-thirds during this period. MNE shares of
GDP were much smaller (6 to 18 percent); correspondingly export-production ratios were
much (4.7 to 9.6 times) higher in MNEs than in the non-MNEs sector. If comparisons are
limited to formal enterprises, wholly-foreign MNEs (WFs), which account for the vast
majority of MNEs in Vietnam, tend to have relatively high export propensities and account
for the vast majority of MNE exports. These data thus suggest that MNEs, and particularly
WFs, make unusually large direct contributions to exports in Vietnam compared to other
economic activities. On the other hand, these compilations cannot establish if export
propensities differ significantly among ownership groups after accounting for other, related
firm-level and industry-level characteristics. Most importantly, this paper highlights several
substantial problems revealed by compilations of the firm-data which much be addressed
before more reliable, rigorous analysis of the firm-level data will be possible.