ASAFA’s Innovation & Policy Summit closed in Da Nang on May 8 with two government memoranda of understanding signed by the Asia SAF Association — the first with the Agency for Innovation, Green Transition and Industry Promotion (IGIP), an MOIT body focused on green-industrial promotion and SME support, and the second with the Da Nang Innovation Startup Support Centre (DISSC).
The MOUs mark Vietnam’s first formal central-government engagement on SAF — but the country remains behind its Southeast Asian peers. Singapore’s SAF levy is statutorily in effect, calibrated to a 1% SAF target for 2026, with the levy applying to flights departing from 1 October 2026 and ticket sales from 1 April 2026. Thailand’s 1% SAF blending mandate began on January 1, 2026, with Jet A-1/SAF specifications already published and a published roadmap scaling toward 5–8% from 2033 onwards. Indonesia has formally introduced bioavtur (J100) as a regulated biofuel category under MEMR Decree No. 4/2025, with a 1% blend target by 2027 and a longer-dated trajectory toward higher shares. Vietnam, by contrast, has no draft mandate, no published volume target, and no obligated-party framework.
The IGIP MOU also lands one step away from where Vietnamese aviation policy actually sits. After the March 2025 government reorganization that merged the Ministry of Transport into the Ministry of Construction, civil aviation policy moved to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) under the Ministry of Construction. IGIP’s mandate covers green-industry promotion, SME support, circular economy training, and trade promotion — not jet-fuel policy drafting. The MOU positions ASAFA as a knowledge-transfer counterparty to one industrial-policy agency, not as a co-drafter of any future Vietnamese SAF mandate.
“Vietnam has the key fundamentals required to build a competitive SAF ecosystem. The question is not whether SAF will scale. The question is where, and who will lead.” — Fabrice Espinosa, Founder and CEO, ASAFA
The Innovation & Policy Summit (IPS) Vietnam 2026 ran May 6-8 and brought together approximately 70 organizations: airlines, fuel producers, financiers, and technology providers, alongside representatives of the National Assembly’s Committee for Economic and Financial Affairs and the ministries of Industry and Trade, Finance, Construction, and Science and Technology. Ho Quang Buu, Vice Chairman of the Da Nang People’s Committee, opened the summit, which the organizers describe as Vietnam’s first international SAF summit.
The IGIP agreement establishes a strategic framework covering SAF capacity-building, technical knowledge transfer, and policy development support. The DISSC agreement positions Da Nang as a hub for SAF innovation through co-organized events, expert networks, and workforce development. Together they give ASAFA the right to convene SAF-policy conversations inside Vietnamese government channels for the first time. Whether those conversations reach CAAV and the Ministry of Construction — the actual aviation-policy locus — is the next test.
ASAFA, established in 2024, now counts 44 member organizations across 17 countries. The association won the EuroCham Sustainability Award 2025 and was represented at COP30 in Belém. Its International SAF Professional Training Academy holds its first intake in September 2026.
Vietnam is the first of three ASAFA summits this year, with Thailand in June and Malaysia in October — both jurisdictions ahead of Vietnam on SAF policy. The Da Nang summit gives ASAFA a foothold in MOIT and Da Nang. The harder lift, and the one that actually moves Vietnam off the regional rear, is reaching CAAV and the Ministry of Construction with a workable mandate framework before the regional gap widens further. The Thailand summit in June is the next checkpoint.
Source: ASAFA / PR Newswire
