The country also looks to develop its bond market to be equivalent to 47 percent and 55 percent of the GDP in those respective years.
Meanwhile, the number of listed companies next year needs to increase by at least 20 percent from 2017. The number of investors in the market should account for 3 percent of the population in 2020 and 5 percent in 2025, according to Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue.
Hue made the statements while addressing a meeting of the State Securities Commission of Vietnam (SSC) in Hanoi on February 22.
He noted that in 2019, relevant agencies must take stronger actions to develop a transparent, professional, and modern market that matches international practices, thus enhancing investors’ trust so as to soon upgrade Vietnam’s stock market from a frontier market to an emerging one.
The Deputy PM also requested that they ensure a reasonable structure between private and organisation investors, and between domestic and foreign ones, while facilitating the development of professional investors.
The Ministry of Finance and the SSC need to make the financial market healthier and improve the capacity of securities business organisations, he said, adding that all transaction and payment technologies on the stock market must be reformed by 2020.
SSC Vice Chairman Pham Hong Son said that in 2018, the stock market proved to be an effective capital mobilisation channel for both the Government and the private sector. The Vietnamese market was assessed as the most successful in Southeast Asia in terms of capital mobilisation.
More than VND 278 trillion (US$11.97 billion) was mobilised through the stock market last year, up 14 percent from 2017. It included VND 192 trillion worth of government bonds raised for the Government, and over VND 86 trillion for businesses.
This has helped companies expand their production and business activities and reduce their reliance on bank loans, he noted.
This year, the SSC will focus on perfecting revisions to the Securities Law and drafting documents guiding its implementation. It will continue working to develop intermediary organisations in the market and to set up the Vietnam Stock Exchange on the basis of the Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh stock exchanges.
Son added that more actions will also be made to upgrade Vietnam’s stock market from a frontier to an emerging market in the rankings of the Modern Index Strategy Indexes (MSCI) and the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE).
