Stock market will develop but not make rapid leaps: expert

Mr Nghia started the interview with the press by saying that the stock market will see further increases. The P/E (price on equity) index is now 38, quite high if compared to the normal level (12-17 times higher). However, the stock market will still see further increases since Vietnam is an emerging market, while the international capital flow is moving towards Asia. A watchdog specializing in supervising the financial market will be set up in the near future, which will not directly interfere in the market, but will only support the market development. Vietnam’s stock market has not been so hot that it needs to be restrained. Do you mean that Vietnam will have a watchdog to supervise financial activities? The Government plans to set up a committee in charge of supervising the financial market operation (securities, banking and insurance). The committee will take remote supervision over the management agencies like the Ministry of Finance and the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV). SBV is also considering setting up a supervision and inspection agency, which will be the result of the reunification of the departments with the same functions. Is it true that the establishment of the financial supervision committee aims to receive the new capital flows and assist the development of the stock market? The international capital is now flowing into Asia. In Asia, China and Vietnam prove to be the two most attractive destinations. Vietnam’s stock market will develop quickly for two reasons. First, Vietnam plans to equitze 70 groups and big generations. If one third of the 70 units list on the bourse, it would be enough to make the total supplies in the market increase sharply. I think this will happen from July towards the years end. The profuse supplies will make the market less hot. Second, there will be several hundreds of foreign investors coming to Vietnam. Many famous financial consultancy groups and banks will be present on the market. Their clients are big investors, who will ask them to do research about Vietnam. There will be a big capital flow into Vietnam’s securities. The stock market will develop strongly, and it will need to be supervised in order to avoid sudden changes, that can cause shocks. You seem to be very optimistic. But why does SBV plan to control the commercial banks that make investment in securities if you believe that the stock market will develop? The Government has been aware of the need to keep the stock market in stable operation. Any troubles in the stock market will directly influence the monetary market. It is the SBV’s task to guarantee the capital raised from the public. Commercial banks have been advised to think carefully before making decisions on funding securities trading deals. For example, when the P/E is three times higher than the normal level, banks should give the loans valued at 1/3 of the securities’ market values. If banks keeps cautious with the loans mortgaged by securities, it would be safer for investors, the stock market and banks as well. Do you mean that SBV will not ask banks to tighten the funding of securities trading deals? No, not to tighten the loaning to securities traders, but to protect them, give advice in order to avoid risks. Foreign investors always are methodical when making investments, even if they just make short term investment. Meanwhile, domestic investors buy or sell securities just by feelings or follow the moves of someone else. It is very risky. Will the Government consider raising the maximum foreign ownership ratio in local banks from the current 30% limit? From April 2007, foreign bankers will have the right to set up 100% foreign owned bank entities in Vietnam. However, I think that many foreign banks will be set up in the first years after Vietnam joins the WTO as they still expect that the 30% foreign ownership ratio will be raised. You may see that the current laws allow local banks to get M&A (merge and acquisition), but aim to prevent foreign banks from swallowing domestic banks.

Source: Thời báo Kinh tế Sài Gòn

HCM City stock exchange ups ante

HCM CITY — Onlycompanies with at least VND80 billion (US$5 million) in authorised capital will
be allowed to list in HCM City.

State Securities Commission Chairman Vu Bang told reporters on the sidelines of a Listed Company Club and investors’ meeting last Saturday in HCM City that a draft decree to guide the Securities Law had been submitted to the Government.

Under the decree, expected to be approved early next year, companies already listed but with less than
VND80 billion equity would have two years to increase their capital failing which they would be moved to the Ha Noi exchange.

Bang said the HCM City bourse would target major institutions in industries like banking, insurance,
and telecom.

FPT lists this week

The Vietnamese markets moved erratically during the past week but with more ups than downs, propelled
by the impending listing of several blue chips.

The VN Index closed almost 65 points higher at 696.12 even though two out of the three trading sessions
last Friday were cancelled due to technical problems at the HCM City Securities Trading Centre.

The Corporation for Financing and Promoting Technology (FPT) will list in HCM City on Wednesday.

FPT is a market leader in systems integration, mobile phone distribution, software production, and telecom
and internet services. It recently opened a software engineering university.

Big names like Intel Capital and Texas Pacific Group have invested US$36.5 million in FPT, whose
equity capital now stands at over VND608 billion ($38 million). Its shares were traded unofficially at 20 times their face value.

It will be followed the next day by Thu Duc Housing Development Corporation (TDH). With capital of
VND170 billion ($10.6 million) it will be the first property company to list. It is owned by various institutional and individual investors including major companies like the HCM City Securities Company, Saigon Securities Inc, Amersham Industries Ltd, and Vietnam Dragon Fund Ltd.

The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corp rates TDH as one of Viet Nam’s top 15 blue chip companies.

The 16-year-old joint-stock company has invested in more than 30 housing projects including An Phu and Binh An, and has eight others under construction, including Cantavil and Hiep Phu.

It is also a major financial investor with VND250 billion ($15.6 million) in Phuoc Long Textile Joint Stock Co., HCM City Housing Development Bank, and Prudential Balanced Investment Fund 1. Its chairman, Le Chi Hieu, said the company would begin to offer new services like property management and brokerage.

It made a profit of VND38 billion ($2.7 million) last year and VND40 billion in the first three quarters
this year.

Securities firm to debut

Saigon Securities (SSI), among Viet Nam’s first securities companies, will this Friday become the first
company from the industry to list on the Ha Noi Securities Trading Centre.

SSI has an equity of VND500 billion ($31.25 million) and total assets of over VND2.5 trillion ($156.25 million).

It services over two-thirds of all foreign stock market investors and consulted for 17 major companies listed in HCM City.

It expects net profits this year of VND148 billion ($9.25 million) and VND302 billion next year, and to
pay annual dividends of 30 per cent until 2009. — VNS

see details: VietNam News

Vietnam - Economy (remarkable success)

The Vietnamese economy has enjoyed its remarkable success. See an article in the Economist:

Vietnam

Aug 3rd 2006 HANOI
From The Economist print edition
An economic boom is accompanied by remarkable success in getting rid of poverty and raising life expectancy

SIGNS of rapid development are visible everywhere around Hanoi: from the flashy sport-utility vehicles on the city's roads to the dormitory villages of smart “executive” homes rising among the fields on the capital's outskirts. George Bush and other world leaders will see it for themselves when Hanoi hosts the Asia-Pacific economic summit in November. That meeting will take place in a new satellite-city, Tu Liem, which is now being built on Hanoi's south-western edge. The futuristic conference centre, with a distinctive wavy glass roof, looks almost finished. Nearby, a huge five-star hotel is getting a final coat of paint. Along Tu Liem's broad, four-lane avenues, some apartment blocks are already occupied, others are just steel skeletons. Between the building sites, cows and buffalo still graze in what was open pasture only recently.

Before starting its doi moi market-oriented reforms in the mid-1980s, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam flirted with real communism and came close to famine. Since then, a reform process that was uneven at first has gathered momentum. Recent economic growth, though not quite as stellar as China's, has been remarkable. In 2001-05 it averaged over 7.5%, reaching a peak of 8.4% last year. This year the government is going all out to hit an 8% target.

Since 1990, Vietnam's exports have increased faster than China's. Their growth shows no signs of slackening. Between January and July they amounted to $22 billion, a year-on-year rise of over 25%. Having alarmed the Brazilians by becoming their main competitor in coffee growing, Vietnam is now ramping up its exports of everything from shrimps to ships to shoes (the last prompting the European Union to announce anti-dumping tariffs last month). It has just become the world's largest exporter of pepper and aims soon to overtake Thailand in rice. It is even selling tea to India.

Foreign-owned factories are chalking up the fastest gains. The government's aim of increasing electronics exports by 27% annually should be boosted by Intel's recent decision to build a $605m microchip plant in Ho Chi Minh City. Though farmers' harvests are still rising, industry's still-higher growth rate means that agriculture's share of economic output continues to shrink—from about 25% in 2000 to 21% last year. By 2010 it may be down to 15%.

This economic revolution is being accompanied by a social one. Though Vietnam is still, overall, one of Asia's poorest countries, with income per head behind India's, its recent growth has been impressively egalitarian. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) reckons that deep poverty in Vietnam—defined as a daily income equivalent to under $1—is now only slightly more prevalent than the average for South-East Asia, whereas in 1990 Vietnam's figure was more than twice the regional average (see charts). By this measure, Vietnam has overtaken China, India and the Philippines and now has only slightly more poverty than Indonesia.

Life expectancy has jumped and infant mortality plunged since the 1990s. Vietnam does better on both these counts than Thailand, a far richer country. Almost three-quarters of Vietnamese children of secondary-school age are in class, up from about a third in 1990. Again, Vietnam has overtaken China, India and Indonesia.

The new five-year plan, approved at April's congress of the ruling Communist Party, is laden with targets for increasing output and improving infrastructure, with the objective of making Vietnam a modern, industrial nation by 2020. Of course, other Asian countries' leaders, from Malaysia to the Philippines, declare similar objectives. The difference is that Vietnam's rulers seem to mean it—and their recent record suggests they might pull it off.

The April congress was preceded by a purge of high officials suspected of corruption—most notably at a road-building agency where some staff stole millions of dollars to bet on football matches. While Nong Duc Manh, the party's general secretary, has survived, the other two members of the ruling triumvirate—the president and prime minister—have since been dropped in favour of youngish, southern Vietnamese officials, seen as supporters of continued economic reform.
Good times, bad times

Vietnam is on a roll and its prospects look good. But much could still go wrong. As Vietnam joins the global economy (it should become a member of the World Trade Organisation in the coming year or so) it is becoming more vulnerable to volatile commodity prices and fickle bond-market investors, whose gyrations are largely outside its control. The recent export surge has been helped by strong global demand and high prices for the things Vietnam sells, from rice to crude oil, but a world recession—or an economic bust in China—could cause a big slowdown. The government is racing to build enough power stations, roads and railways to keep the economy moving. Any delays in these would spell trouble.

The communist government's continuing acceptance by ordinary Vietnamese rests largely on its success in delivering prosperity and better public services. If it fails to reduce corruption or produce jobs for the more than 1m young Vietnamese who join the labour force each year and the 1m villagers migrating to the cities, the country's social cohesion and sense of purpose would be in danger.

That makes it vital to accelerate the government's programme to restructure and sell thousands of state-owned firms. They are more graft-prone than private companies, and devour the lion's share of scarce land and credit while creating few new jobs. The private sector provides most of the growth in jobs and exports, but would do better still if it was not crowded out by the public sector. Le Dang Doanh, an economic adviser to the government, reckons that, but for the vested interests slowing down privatisation, Vietnam could now be growing at 11%, just like China.