The Emerging Asia Pacific Capital Markets: Vietnam

Abstract

Compared with other capital markets around the world, Vietnam’s capital market has a relatively short history of only 20 years. In that time, however, the Vietnamese capital market has transformed—from a small market with limited products and capitalization at 1% of GDP in 2000 into a market with a wide range of stock, bond, and derivative products worth 104% of GDP in June 2020. The market is attracting more participants locally as well as internationally, drawing a large amount of capital into Vietnam’s economy and contributing significantly to the nation’s growth. If Vietnam can adequately address its challenges—such as institutions, high-quality human resources, financial infrastructure, IT, transparency, and financial product range—its capital market will have many opportunities to grow because of its relatively small size (compared with other Asia-Pacific economies) and the country’s great economic prospects.