Vietnam has just reported one of the year's most striking figures: its economy grew 9.95% year on year in the third quarter of 2026, its fastest pace in four years, according to its National Statistics Office, as reported by Reuters via The Star and bne IntelliNews. Surging exports, rising industrial production, and investment in infrastructure. The headline invites applause.
But the same report includes two facts that applause tends to drown out. First, the government had set an annual growth target of more than 10%, and the best quarter in years still falls short. Second, in the first nine months, imports grew faster than exports, and the country accumulated a record trade deficit, driven partly by rising energy costs.
This is not a criticism of Vietnam. It is a lesson in reading the numbers: a dazzling figure is not the same as healthy finances. And that confusion is not limited to countries. It is the same confusion that sinks businesses, careers, and personal finances every day.
The number we celebrate and the number we pay for
Growth of almost 10% is real. No one conjures up that figure through optimism. But growth measures how much moved, not how much remained. A country can sell more than ever while buying even more to make those sales possible. A company can double its revenue and end up with less cash. A person can earn more this year than last year and finish with more debt.
Emotion reads the first number. Logic looks for the second. That is why PRAXMA insists that ignoring reality is the worst business decision: reality rarely hides. It is simply on the next line of the report, the one nobody shares on social media.
Three questions the headline does not answer
- What did it cost? All growth consumes inputs. If input costs rise faster than income, growth becomes a treadmill moving backward.
- Who controls it? If your progress depends on someone else's energy supply, suppliers, or platforms, someone else determines part of your result.
- What target is it measured against? An excellent result can also be a missed target. Both can be true.
Targets need scrutiny too
Here is the uncomfortable point. When a result falls short of a target, the typical response is one of two things: punish the result or defend the target at any cost. Neither is logical.
A target is not an oath; it is a hypothesis. If you aimed for more than 10% and reached 9.95% in your best quarter, the serious question is not "How can I push harder?" but "What would I have to pay to close that gap, and is it worth it?" Forcing that last increment may require more debt, more expensive imports, and more pressure on the system. Sometimes the cost of the final stretch destroys what you gained in the earlier ones.
Serious long-term planning has explicit dates, costs and assumptions. Ambition without scrutiny, by contrast, is just a wish with a spreadsheet.
From a country to your business
Bring this down to a human scale. An entrepreneur doubles sales and celebrates. But to double them, they hired before having the cash flow, bought inventory on credit, and accepted customers who pay in 90 days. The growth is real; so is the hole. And the hole gives no warning: it appears in the month when rent is due on the first, even though sales proceeds arrive on the thirtieth.
Persistence without sound foundations isn't a virtue. It's expensive stubbornness. That's why you have to find the holes in a business before they sink it. A deficit that grows faster than your sales is one of those holes, even when it comes wrapped in the best quarter in your history.
The defense isn't to stop growing. It's to grow with a margin. Keeping reserves isn't timid: reserves are strategy, the thing that lets you survive the quarter when energy, suppliers or the market decide to change the rules.
A practical rule
Before celebrating any growth, in your business, your income or your audience, do three calculations: how much inflows grew, how much outflows grew, and how much of the result depends on something you don't control. If all three check out, celebrate. If not, you know where to look. That habit of asking before you sign follows one simple rule: control requires precision, and you can't control what you don't measure accurately.
The PRAXMA mindset
The idea: spectacular growth can coexist with a missed target and a record deficit; reading only the headline is the most elegant way to deceive yourself.
— PRAXMA, Logic over emotion
The fact: Vietnam grew 9.95% year on year in the third quarter of 2026, its fastest pace in four years, below its annual target of more than 10% and alongside a record trade deficit over nine months (Reuters / Vietnam's National Statistics Office).
PRAXMA's line: ‘Growth is easy to announce; the hard part is growing without owing the result to someone else.’
If this topic interests you, there's a longer exploration of how to find the holes in a business before they swallow you Spanish only. We also talk it through on the podcast.
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