ECO 306
Stock Market
The Vietnamese stock market has steadily expanded over the past 25 years, becoming a
major source of cash for the country's economy. On July 28, 2000, the HCM City Stock Trading
Center had its initial trading session with just two tickers, REE and SAM, with a total market
value of VND270 billion. There were just five companies listed at the end of 2000, totaling 32.1
million shares. More than 99% of the almost 3,000 investment accounts belonged to private
individuals. Vietnam's stock exchange was only worth about 1% of GDP in the early years
(2000–2005). By the end of 2005, 41 enterprises had been listed, 32 of which were on the HCM
CityStock Trading Center and the rest on the Hanoi Stock Trading Center. Since 2006, the wave
of SOE equitization related to public market IPOs has been booming. Vietnam's membership in
the World Trade Organization, which was prompted by the global financial crisis of 2008–2009,
caused the stock market to grow and draw a significant number of foreign participants.
Throughout 2012, the amount of money raised through the stock market has increased
dramatically, with an average annual growth rate of over 30%—more than twice as fast as the
pace at which money was supplied by the system of financial institutions. Since 2015,
international investors have expanded in number by 15% annually, exceeding the 10% growth
rate of investment accounts in the stock market. From 12.4% in 2008 to 72.6% in 2019, there
was a huge growth in the stock market capitalisation to GDP. The amount of money raised
through the stock market by the end of 2019 had amounted to almost VND 300 trillion. By the
end of June 2020, the stock market's capitalization had surpassed VND 4,000 trillion, or around
65% of GDP. 1,723 stocks and fund certificates were listed or registered for trade on the
Vietnamese stock market, with 737 listed on both stock exchanges and 903 registered for trading
on the UPCoM. There were 16,000 institutional investor-owned accounts out of 2.54 million
total investment accounts as of June 2020, an increase of 820 times from 2000. 33,000
international investment accounts, or 1.3 percent of all stock market participants, were now
available.
