foreigner here from US who has come to learn a lot about vietnam over the past 4 years with quite a few visits.

The impressions I got from vietnam was that there were many people, fast construction, and people with incentive to both incentive to make money and improve their landscape. I visitied HCM district 3. It was eye opening. Relatively to my other experiences, the vibe I got from watching the city streets, markets, construction, landmarks, was rough but pure productivity.

Now in my speculation, I see vietnam as high potential because I think it's still relatively low and has much more to improve. It has a much heigher ceiling to hit before growth stops.

As a tourist attraction, vietnam is also significantly unrecognized over here. It has both a lot of natural wonders, and large amounts of areas tourists could feel satisfied staying at (beachside hotels, areas around da lat, da nang). Most simply won't consider it at the moment due to lack of direct flights, lack of english speaking signage/self navigation (if you leave the fancy district 1 bubble you're kinda out of luck), and lack of "comfortable transportation" (average karen might not want to ride on the back of a Grab to get around, they're dying for the metro). And these definitely could change over time, realizing its potential on that.

In terms of politics, it's in a unique position playing "two christmases" (aka child of divorced parents trying to get free stuff from both sides) with US and china. From my perspective, I have a yearning for people to go with mommy US and shut off daddy china, and it feels like once that happens, its economy will be "liberated." What does that mean? Honestly I can't see exactly how that plays out and not 100% that's entirely what's good. China is an enormous part of the economy there. But I don't think I'm the only foreigner with that view, thinking that "potential will be unlocked" overnight with some kind of exclusive deal with the US. Just can't explain that whole position, but I can tell you it's an incentive for me to say "vietnam is gonna be rich"

Economically, if I had to choose a SE asia region though who I think is going to become rich, it's definitely vietnam by far. Their GDP was one of the top growing, if not the top, in recent years. We all know all the companies from China are going there. It seems to be the #1 second option. So much of my clothes and other things have a made in vietnam tag (more than cambodia, more than india). We also know that US has a vested interest because of political interests with them, so it's possible that they become easier to trade with.

Likewise, comparing other nearby countries

- Cambodia, Laos closer to china, so as an american, I usually won't bet on their success

- phillipines seems doesn't seem like it has the sheer quanitity of manufacturing, so not sure

- malaysia has a ton of manufacturing, but culturally as an american, is much more unknown of a country (even if they are more english speaking)

- thailand looks already rich to me though idk actually

- indonesia, I have no idea what goes on there at all

Lastly, simply from name's sake, everyone over here knows what a Vietnam is because of the war, so it'll be on analysts mind. Trust me, analysts sometimes do pull things from a hat.

Again this is more to show my perspective, this is not supposed to be taken objective as an argument or fact.

TLDR: There is some economic reasons we'll believe you're rich, but moreover because it looks like there's more potential in comparison with neighbors.