Vietnam's Cultural Industries: From Strategy to Statute
The strategy: ten industries, a 7% target
In November 2025 the Prime Minister approved Decision 2486/QĐ-TTg, the Strategy for the Development of Vietnam's Cultural Industries to 2030, with a vision to 2045. It names ten cultural industries: film; fine arts, photography and exhibitions; performing arts; software and entertainment games; advertising; handicrafts; cultural tourism; creative design; television and radio; and publishing.
Six of the ten get investment priority: film, performing arts, software and games, advertising, handicrafts and cultural tourism. The targets are ambitious.
| Target | By 2030 | By 2045 |
|---|---|---|
| Share of GDP | 7% | 9% |
| Annual growth of the sector | about 10% | — |
| Share of national employment | 6% (employment growing 10% a year) | 8% |
| Growth of cultural exports | 7% a year | 9% a year |
| Digital share of output | — | over 80% |
The sequencing is telling. Until 2030, Vietnamese cultural products are to serve mainly domestic demand, with exports aimed first at markets with large Vietnamese communities. Global competitiveness is a goal for the 2045 horizon.
The strategy also tasks the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MoCST) with building national databases and statistical indicators for the sector. MoCST statistics put the cultural industries' average annual production value at nearly VND1.06 quadrillion (about US$44 billion) over 2018–2022.
The political frame: culture as a growth engine
The strategy is now part of a larger political push, set at the top of the Party. Three decisions in 2026 turned it into a legislative priority:
- Resolution 80-NQ/TW (7 January 2026). The Politburo's resolution on developing Vietnamese culture. It casts cinema and the other cultural industries as contributors to growth, around the same 7% of GDP target for 2030.
- Conclusion 18-KL/TW (2 April 2026). The Party Central Committee's conclusion on the 2026–2030 socio-economic plan, tied to a goal of double-digit growth. It calls for the cultural industries to be developed strongly.
- Notice 12-TB/BCĐTW (30 July 2026). After its second meeting, the Central Steering Committee on the Development of Vietnamese Culture named the cultural industries a new driver of growth. It ordered a law to be ready for the National Assembly's October session under shortened procedures.
These sit alongside a National Target Programme on Cultural Development for 2025–2035, already approved by the National Assembly. The draft political report to the 14th Party Congress also named "cultural industries and heritage economy" as part of a new growth model.
The context matters for reading the law. Vietnam's economy grew 9.01% in the first nine months of 2026, and the leadership is pursuing growth of around 10%. Culture is being asked to contribute to that drive, not only to identity or soft power.
The draft law: six policy groups and a set of special mechanisms
The draft Law on Cultural Industry Development went out for public consultation from 5 to 24 August 2026. It has been tightened at each stage: from 60 articles in the consultation draft, to 53 when the National Assembly Standing Committee reviewed it on 24 September, to eight chapters and 39 articles in the bill presented to the National Assembly on 24 October. The ministry summarises its spirit as turning cultural identity into intellectual assets, and intellectual assets into cash flow.
Throughout, the draft has been organised around six policy groups. The table shows the measures as publicly reported at the September review:
| Policy group | Main measures (September draft) |
|---|---|
| Ecosystem | A legal status for cultural industries in the national economic structure; a regulatory sandbox for new products and business models in film, music, games, design, fashion and other fields |
| Intellectual property | Cultural IP usable as a capital contribution or as collateral for credit; lenders allowed to rely on valuation reports; a "cultural industry exchange" to list and trade cultural products and IP rights |
| Human resources | A competency framework linked to the national qualifications framework; internationally competitive pay for top talent; a five-year personal income tax exemption for highly skilled workers |
| Infrastructure | "Creative cultural complexes", including converted industrial sites; lower land and shared-infrastructure costs, tied to project eligibility and performance |
| Markets | A National Cultural Card, built into the electronic ID account, for students and low-income and other priority groups; export promotion and national branding |
| Finance and investment | VAT refunds for foreign organisations and individuals filming in Vietnam; partial cost support for high-value projects; incentives for publishing, original IP and priority products; no new fund |
The draft also favours foreign investors who bring technology and IP and create value in Vietnam. It frames the incentives as sharing risk and crowding in private capital, not replacing private investment.
At the September review, the Standing Committee endorsed the need for the law. The National Assembly's Committee for Culture and Society, which vets the bill, flagged four concerns:
- Overlap. The draft must avoid conflict with the IP Law, the Education Law and the Law on Teachers; the Standing Committee added the Civil Code, the Digital Technology Industry Law, the State Budget Law, and the investment and enterprise laws.
- Definitions. It should not redefine "intellectual asset" but set valuation principles instead, to stay consistent with the IP Law.
- Feasibility. The tax, credit, pay and venture-capital incentives need a fuller impact assessment, targeted at those who create directly.
- Fairness. The Cultural Card should avoid an "ask-and-give" discretionary mechanism and could use existing ID or student cards.
The October bill keeps the core architecture. Reports confirm the controlled-testing sandbox, the cultural industry exchange, creative cultural complexes, and IP as a capital contribution or collateral (Article 11). It also recognises creative software and digital platforms as infrastructure that records the creative process. Tax incentives remain in principle, but the committee's October report treats VAT refunds only in general terms, asking for principles, ceilings and rates aligned with tax laws being revised at the same session. Public reports on the October bill do not mention the National Cultural Card.
The committee's October report also asked the drafters to assess the fiscal cost of the incentives and keep the sandbox from overlapping the Law on Science, Technology and Innovation. It asked them to drop "medical tourism" from the priority list, add rules on cultural sovereignty online and cross-border platforms, and allow incentives to be recovered if foreign investors miss their commitments.
The timing of the final vote is not yet settled. In September the Standing Committee planned for the National Assembly to comment at this session and vote at the next; some reports this month expect passage during the current session.
Cinema as the test case
Film is where Vietnam's ambitions are most visible, and where the market is already moving. According to CJ CGV Vietnam, 2025 box office reached nearly VND5.6 trillion (about US$213 million) from more than 70 million tickets, up 24% and 26% on 2024. Vietnamese films took 62% of the market.
The structure of that growth matters as much as its size:
- More hits, but a long tail. Fifty local titles were released in 2025, averaging VND69 billion each. Eleven earned more than VND100 billion, yet 70% of local releases took under VND50 billion.
- Genre concentration. Horror was a dominant, low-budget, high-return genre with young audiences in 2025.
- State-backed epics. The all-time record holder, Mưa đỏ (Red Rain, 2025), was produced by People's Army Cinema and ended its run with more than VND710 billion. Its success showed that historical war films can also be commercial hits.
The momentum continued into 2026, with six productions passing VND100 billion in the first quarter alone. Internationally, Ho Chi Minh City joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a City of Film in late 2025; with Quezon City in the Philippines, it is one of Southeast Asia's first two.
The VAT refund for foreign shoots proposed in September points to a second strategy: competing as a location. Regional rivals such as Thailand and Malaysia already run production incentive schemes, so a refund alone may not be decisive; speed of permits, crew depth and post-production capacity will matter too.
For independent and art-house filmmakers, the picture is less clear. The draft's tools favour rights-holders able to value, pledge and trade IP. Smaller producers working through festivals and international co-production funds may see less direct benefit, unless implementing decrees carve out support for them.
What the law leaves open
What counts toward 7%. The strategy names ten industries. The draft law's scope, as presented to the Standing Committee, is wider: it adds music, digital content, cuisine, fashion and architecture, among others. The committee's October request to remove "medical tourism" from the priority list shows how loose that boundary had become. If the 2030 target is measured on the law's scope, part of any rise will come from counting more, not producing more. The strategy asks MoCST to build statistical indicators; publishing them before the target is tested would make the 7% figure credible. Indonesia faces the same question after widening its own definition this year.
How IP is valued. IP-backed finance depends on valuation that lenders trust. The Standing Committee's caution about redefining "intellectual asset" shows how much rests on the parallel amendment of the IP Law, which it reviewed the same morning.
Where AI fits. A separate government decree this year (Decree 277/2026/NĐ-CP on digital cultural infrastructure) encourages Vietnamese-developed digital cultural products and prioritises investment in AI and big data for the cultural industries. The bill itself says little about AI. In the 24 October debate, one deputy proposed banning the unauthorised use of cultural data and works to train AI models, and AI uses that imitate people's images, voices or creative styles without permission. Whether such provisions enter the final text matters greatly for creators.
What the law does not touch. The draft is designed not to re-regulate matters already governed by sectoral laws. Licensing and content rules for film, publishing and broadcasting therefore stay where they are. The incentives will operate on top of the content framework, not change it. That framework is moving on a separate track: on 20 October the National Assembly heard a bill amending eight laws, including the Cinema Law. It would increase online distributors' responsibilities, let the state part-fund private films that serve political tasks, and devolve licensing of festivals with foreign participation to provincial authorities.
What to watch, and what it means for ASEAN–Korea cooperation
Four signals will show how far the law changes practice:
- The vote and the final text. Which incentives survive, especially the VAT refund, the income-tax breaks and the Cultural Card, and whether rules on AI training data are added.
- The scope at passage. Whether the final list of industries matches the strategy's ten or the draft's wider list, and whether statistical indicators follow.
- The implementing decrees. Most incentives depend on eligibility rules and performance criteria still to be written.
- The exchange and IP finance in practice. Whether banks actually lend against cultural IP, and on what valuations.
The timing also links culture to diplomacy. Vietnam will host APEC in 2027, a natural showcase for its cultural industries.
For Korea the connection is direct. Vietnamese coverage of the draft cites Korea's 1999 Framework Act on the Promotion of Cultural Industries as a reference point, and Korean companies are already embedded in Vietnam's market: CJ CGV, which supplied the box-office figures above, is one of the largest exhibitors. Korea's experience over more than two decades, including what worked and what did not in IP valuation, completion finance and content statistics, is the kind of knowledge Vietnam is now looking for. Sharing it through policy exchange, rather than only through investment, would make the partnership more balanced.
Sources
- Five-year cultural industries development strategy approved — Vietnam Government Portal, November 2025
- Xác định địa vị pháp lý chính thức cho ngành công nghiệp văn hóa — VietnamPlus, 24 September 2026 (Standing Committee review)
- Vietnam considers VAT refunds for foreign film crews — Vietnam Investment Review, 9 September 2026
- Hoàn thiện khung pháp lý, tạo động lực phát triển công nghiệp văn hóa — Báo Văn hóa, 24 October 2026 (bill presented to the National Assembly)
- Làm rõ cơ sở xây dựng cơ chế riêng cho công nghiệp văn hóa — VNA, 24 October 2026 (debate, AI proposal)
- Vietnamese titles dominate the 2025 domestic box office — Việt Nam News, citing CJ CGV Vietnam