Vietnam ‘most successful’ Southeast Asian stock market: PM

He said that Vietnam’s stock market had a capitalization of 72 percent of GDP at the end of 2018.

Speaking at a recent ceremony at the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX), he also noted that in 2018, capital mobilized by the private sector through shares and corporate bonds in the year reached VND86 trillion ($3.69 billion).

However, Phuc said, the stock market needs to be developed further, and the Ministry of Finance should find solutions to expand market scale, especially for the corporate bond market.

The prime minister also stressed the need to raise minority shareholder protection mechanisms, with Vietnam ranked 89/190 by the World Bank in terms of protecting minority investors.

He also noted that despite a significant slump in the stock markets by the end of December 2018, the market has been showing positive signs in the trading sessions after Lunar New Year.

The VN-Index opened at 916.98 points on Monday, February 11, and closed at an impressive 945.25 points by the end of Wednesday.

Foreign investors were net buyers for the period, with a total net buy of VND71.83 billion ($3.08 million) on the February 12 session alone, one day after the market reopened for trading after a one week break.

Bernard Lapointe, head of research of Rong Viet Securities, told Bloomberg recently that he was optimistic but not too optimistic about the market this year. He expects the VN-Index to stay within the 900-1,000 points range until the end of 2019.

A more optimistic Michel Tosto, head of Institutional Sales and Brokerage of Viet Capital Securities, predicted that the VN-Index could reach 1,060 points at the end of 2019.