Total capitalization of Vietnam’s listed securities market hit VND300 trillion, or about $20 billion, accounting for 31 per cent of the country’s GDP, Nguyen Ngoc Canh, head of the State Securities Commission’s External Relations Department, said in a recent seminar.
Canh stated in his review statement on Vietnam’s stock market in the first half of 2007 the total capitalization of bond market alone reached VND80 trillion, equivalent to 8 per cent of GDP.
Vietnam’s listed stock market was reported to have capitalization of $14 billion at the end of 2006, accounting for 22.7 per cent of GDP, Canh said.
As many as 55 securities companies are reportedly operating with average registered capital of VND90 billion in Vietnam, which is expected to have total 100 companies by the end of this year. It has licensed 18 fund management firms and 61 securities custodian organizations.
So far more than 200,000 securities trading accounts have been opened, seven folds higher than the figure of the end of 2005 and 1.5 times higher than that of late 2006. Foreign investors have opened 4,400 accounts.
Currently, 206 foreign institutional investors have registered to join the market with investment capital estimated at about $5 billion.
Kim Thanh, a specialist from the Monetary Policy Department, under the State Bank of Vietnam, released statistics showing that more than 40 companies have organized auctions to sell nearly 451 million shares to public since the beginning of this year.
However, there is only one company listing its shares on the local stock market, namely Cho Lon Real Estate Company.
Vietnam’s two stock exchanges now have total 194 stocks, two fund certificates and 500 kinds of bonds.
The market witnessed two trends in the first half, with the best-ever boom in the first three months, but it experience the correction in three months later.
The country’s main market index, VN-Index, hit the record high at 1,170.67 point on March 12 and dropped to this year’s low at 905.53 point on April 24. However, the index increased by 33.88 per cent from the beginning of this year, or 6.85 per cent a month on average.
The HASTC-Index of the over-the-counter bourse in Hanoi jumped to new high at 454.81 point on March 9 and dropped to nearly 300 point in the second half of June. However, the index rose 6.47 per cent a month on average.
BMC recorded the highest price among stocks. It soared to the peak at VND847,000 a share on May 21, surpassed the previous high record of VND665,000 by FPT.
Vietnam’s biggest insurer Bao Viet saw the record number of subscribers in its IPO with 20,368 investors, much higher than the figure of nearly 8,000 investors, who registered to buy shares of PetroVietnam Insurance Corp. (VnEconomy)
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