Vietnam Stock Market

There are currently two securities trading centres in Vietnam, the Ho Chi Minh Securities Trading Centre (HOSTC), and the Hanoi Securities Trading Centre (HASTC). Although only in its infancy stage, there has been large volatility in the Vietnam Stock Market. Year 2006 saw a rapid leap of Vietnam's securities market as a whole, from the expansion of market capitalization to increase in daily turnover, price levels, number of listed companies, participants and financial intermediaries. VN-Index rose from 304.23 to 809.86 (166% gain) on December 20, 2006. Market capitalization leaped from being 1% of GDP at the end of year 2005 to 22.6% of GDP at the end of 2006, the number of securities trading accounts increased from 24,036 to 400,000 accounts from 2005-2008, and 164 companies were  granted licences to list on the market.

As of July 17, 2007, the Vietnam Stock Market consisted of 194 listed stocks. Total market capitalization was US$ 20 billion with average growth of 20%-30% per year. It was ranked as the best performance index in 2006 and will continue to flourish in the coming years, creating a favourable environment for investment opportunities.

In addition to FDI, indirect investments under the forms of financial investments in debt and equitiy of Vietnamese companies are increasing in high demand. Factors contributing to Vietnam's high growth Stock market include:

• the increasing participation of large financial institutions such as HSBC, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, UBS, Deutsche Bank AG etc and other investment funds and thousands of individual investors
• the increasing awareness of local public investors
• the privatisation of state-owned enterprise program
• a favourable business environment
• the government's commitments to promote the development of the securities market
• strengthening of regulations on securities market to meet international standards
• opening the market more to foreign investors in consistent with WTO committments

Securities activities in Vietnam are regulated by the State Securities Commission ("SSC"). The SSC is responsible for the development of the securities market, licensing of market participants, and the issuance and enforcement of regulations in relation to securities market activities in Vietnam.