SVEF Ha Noi 2026 Recap: What Happened at the Swiss–Viet Economic Forum

SVEF Ha Noi 2026 took place days after the signing of the Free Trade Agreement between Viet Nam and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), and during the official visit to Viet Nam of Swiss President Guy Parmelin. The 2026 edition also marks the 55th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Switzerland and Viet Nam.

Speaking at the opening, President Parmelin described the EFTA–Viet Nam FTA as a strategic commitment to closer economic cooperation. He cited bilateral trade of nearly USD 3.5 billion in 2025, up almost 20% year on year, and Swiss foreign direct investment in Viet Nam of approximately USD 1.8 billion in 2024. Viet Nam’s Minister of Industry and Trade, Le Manh Hung, said the agreement’s success would be measured by the projects realised, technologies transferred and supply chains established — not only by tariff lines eliminated.

The emphasis across the three days fell less on the signing itself than on implementation — what businesses on both sides would actually do with the agreement.

The forum opened at the Meliá Hanoi with addresses from SVEF leadership, the Swiss and Vietnamese ambassadors, and keynote remarks on what the signed FTA means for business today, delivered against the backdrop of the Swiss President’s visit.

Day 2 — Main Forum Day (19 October)

The centrepiece, open to all registered delegates. The morning combined a high-level policy dialogue — “Opening the Door: From FTA Signature to Market Opportunity” — with two plenary sessions on industrial transformation and supply chains, and on finance and investment ecosystems. The afternoon ran six parallel tracks covering mobility and trade connectivity, infrastructure, energy, innovation and the digital economy, healthcare, education and talent, and legal frameworks and market entry. The day closed with an MoU signing ceremony formalising bilateral agreements and partnerships, followed by the gala dinner.

Day 3 — Field Visits (20 October)

An optional day of site visits to industrial parks and port infrastructure in Hai Phong, and cultural and provincial programmes in Bac Ninh, giving delegates a working look at the industrial base the agreements are meant to serve.

Leadership Sponsor and Technology Partner

IMT Solutions supported SVEF Ha Noi 2026 in two capacities: as a Leadership Sponsor of the forum, and as its Technology Partner. The sponsorship reflects IMT’s long-standing engagement with the Swiss–Vietnamese business community; the technology role covered the digital infrastructure the event ran on.

For the first time, the forum ran with an official mobile app, developed in-house by IMT Solutions. The app consolidated the parts of a three-day, multi-track event that usually live in printed programmes and email attachments:

• The full programme across all three days, with each delegate’s chosen track pre-selected and a personal agenda built by starring sessions
• An attendee directory searchable by name, company or role, with speaker biographies and organisation profiles
• Connection requests that include a written reason, so the recipient can decide with context
• One-on-one meeting requests for the forum’s networking windows
• Practical information — venue, transport, visa and entry — with notifications when the programme changes
• Full English and Vietnamese interfaces

An Mai, Chairman of IMT Solutions, moderated Session E: Education Cooperation & Talent Development. The session ran across six topics: higher education and international partnerships, vocational education and workforce development, applied research and innovation, talent mobility and academic exchange, industry-academia collaboration, and future skills and lifelong learning.

The discussion touched ground familiar to anyone who hires: the gap between what education programmes deliver and what businesses need on the job exists in both countries, and each has structural answers worth comparing — Switzerland’s dual education model on one side, Viet Nam’s young, fast-scaling workforce on the other. From IMT’s side, sitting on that conversation is not a side topic: talent pipeline is the same problem IMT works on internally, in a market where engineering capacity is the constraint everyone names.