A heat wave in Vietnam in May and June of last year led to major power shortages across the north of the country. Factories owned by some of the world's largest tech firms, including South Korean tech giant Samsung, experienced weeks of blackouts that the Vietnamese government says caused $1.4 billion (€1.29 billion) in economic losses, roughly 0.3% of GDP. But the bigger casualty was Vietnam's reputation.

Vietnam was arguably the biggest winner of the global offshoring of supply chains away from China that began in 2018 with then-US President Donald Trump's trade war with Beijing. This allowed Vietnam to attract some of the world's largest companies — Intel's biggest test and assembly plant is located in Ho Chi Minh City, while Samsung Electronics, Foxconn, and Canon all have set up shop in Vietnam.

However, Vietnam now faces stiffer competition from the likes of Thailand and Malaysia for tech investment, meaning Hanoi must prove it can keep energy flowing into factories.

According to World Bank data, Vietnam faces competition to attract higher-end microchip manufacturers as its infrastructure is less developed and its worker productivity rates are weaker than those of some of its Southeast Asian peers.

Hanoi has turned back to coal to prevent more power cuts this year, a prerequisite for attracting advanced semiconductor fabrication, a high-precision industry extremely sensitive to power disruptions.

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In March, the Vietnamese government made assurances to multinational companies that there would be no more power cuts this year.

In normal times,........

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