Vietnam’s stock market capitalization tops $52bn: minister
Sunday, July 27, 2014, 18:03 GMT+7
The capitalization of Vietnam’s stock market has amounted to some $52 billion, equal to about 32 percent of the national gross domestic product, a senior state official said at a recent ceremony organized in Ho Chi Minh City.
The stock market is expected to become a major capital mobilization channel of the economy by 2020, Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung said at the ceremony held on Saturday to mark the 14th anniversary of the establishment of the Vietnamese stock market.
The market is among the 10 best-performing markets in the world, Dung added. Meanwhile, the size of the local bond market is about 17 percent of the country’s GDP, he said.
In the first six months of this year, there were more and more positive signals from the market as the average transaction value increased by 58 percent over the same period last year, he said.
The finance minister also emphasized the need for further efforts from market participants so that the market will become a major capital mobilization channel for the economy in the next six years.
This is not a simple task in the complex context of immediate and long-term prospects of the local economy, Dung stressed.
On the occasion, Vu Bang, chairman of the State Securities Commission (SSC), said one of the most outstanding marks of the Vietnamese stock market’s development over the past 14 years is its increasing transparency which has enabled more local firms to meet international standards in doing business and publishing their financial status regularly.
"The publishing of the financial statements of enterprises has become increasingly more professional. Especially, in the last two years, many businesses have paid more attention to building sustainable value chains besides their normal business activities,” Bang added.
At the ceremony, 50 listed companies with the best annual reports were also honored, with Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Co (Vinamilk) winning the first prize in the category.
A magnet for foreign investors
The stock exchanges of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have hosted about 1.3 million accounts of foreign investors with total portfolio values reaching $13 billion, Dung said.
Recently, the SSC clinched deals on collaboration with securities and exchange commissions of 20 European countries to open the door for funds from the region participating in the market.
Given that fact, foreign investors may head to Vietnam to seek for business opportunities in the future, he added.
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Vietnam’s stock market saw the strongest growth in Southeast Asia last year with a rise of over 20 percent while the majority of regional markets declined or increased only by three to 10 percent. It was followed by the Malaysian EMAS Index with a hike of 11.44 percent. In the meantime, the stock markets of Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia witnessed a decline of 1.07 percent, 7.73 percent, and 1.74 percent from a year earlier. According to Bloomberg data, the Vietnamese stock market took the lead in net foreign purchases worth over $50 million in December alone. The Thai and Indonesian markets were worth $1.3 billion and 476.32 million in net sales. For the whole 2013, foreign capital flows into Vietnam's stock market topped $250 million net, the second largest in Southeast Asia. Most of the stock markets in the region are classified as Emerging Market on the global financial map. |
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