This paper examines how foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) have grown in Vietnam’s
manufacturing and trade industries, and tries to shed light on how MNE takeovers of
Vietnamese firms have affected employment, and wages between 2000 and 2012. Although
the scale of MNE activity has been substantial and grown in recent years, there are substantial
discrepancies in measures of MNE shares from alternative sources and uncertainty over the
actual share of MNEs in Vietnamese production or employment. On the other hand, the
number of MNE takeovers has been very small and they appear to have played only a small
role in changes of MNE shares. Rather, changes in MNE shares have resulted primarily from
the entry and exit MNEs and changes in the scale of MNE activity.