Japanese Investors still Keen on Vietnam Stock Market: Daiwa Director

Takashi Hibino, CEO-Vice Chairman of the Daiwa Securities Group (DSGI), said that Japanese individual investors are now still paying much attention to Vietnam's stock market as the market has lost 60 per cent of its value so far this year, the Securities Investment newspaper quoted.

 

Japanese investors are interested in investing in foreign stock markets as the coupon of government bonds in Japan, although having increased by some 0.5 per cent against a year earlier, remains low compared to many regional countries, he explained.

 

In addition, the interest rates in Japan's monetary market are also very low, at 0.01 per cent-0.2 per cent per annum in 2007, Takashi Hibino added.

 

Japan's institutional investors have not yet paid much attention to Vietnam as the country's stock market scale remains modest while their investment deals often value at billions of U.S. dollars.

 

However, the DSGI CEO noted that many Japanese institutional investors are still waiting for investment opportunities in Vietnam's state-owned enterprises to be privatized in the coming time.

 

The current foreign cap of 49 per cent in Vietnamese listed firms, Takashi said, is relatively open for foreign investors, versus 33 per cent in Chinese market.

 

DSGI, as the second largest securities company in Japan, has recently signed a deal to buy an additional 10 per cent stake in Saigon Securities Incorporation (SSI) to raise its holding to 13.17 per cent.

 

SSI will be the sole strategic partner of DSGI in Vietnam, the chairman said. It will invest in other private firms with creative and active leadership under the form of financial investment. (Securities Investment)