Securities 2025 expects a breakthrough in scale and quality

	Vietnam's stock market to develop strongly and sustainably
	Ensuring financial capacity of bonds issuers

Chairwoman of the State Securities Commission Vu Thi Chan Phuong

Could you please tell us about factors that can affect the development of the Vietnamese stock market in this year?

Despite many fluctuations due to many impacts from the world economic, trade and geopolitical situation, the Vietnamese stock market in 2024 still maintained stability, safety and development, continuing to affirm its role as an important medium and long-term capital channel for the economy and businesses. The market maintained stability, good liquidity, discipline was improved, increasing transparency and sustainability.

2024 is also a year that recorded achievements in the management, operation and supervision of the stock market of the Securities industry, especially the perfecting of the legal framework when the amended Securities Law was issued, and Circular 68/2024/TT-BTC removed important bottlenecks for the upgrading of the market.

I think that the above positive results are not only the efforts of the Securities sector but also are contributions of the whole sector for many years with the participation of the entire political system.

It is expected that the achievements will continue to create momentum for the Vietnamese stock market to develop more strongly and more sustainably in 2025 and the following years.

We must agree that the stock market always depends on many factors, both subjective and objective factors. The performance of the stock market reflects the domestic and international macroeconomic factors, the health of businesses... through confidence and expectations of investors in the market.

Therefore, the performance of the stock market this year and in the coming time will depend on macroeconomic policies and economic prospects in the country and the world.

In the World Economic Outlook 2025 report, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts global economic growth to reach 3.2%, equivalent to the increase in 2024. Meanwhile, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) forecasts that the stability of the global economy will be maintained in 2025 and 2026 with the GDP growth rate of 3.3%.

However, the IMF also recommended that there will be many unstable and unpredictable factors for the global economy, including potential trade conflicts, geopolitical tensions, the strength of US dollar and the weakening of the economies of some countries. We believe that the advantages and challenges of the world will continue to have a multi-dimensional impact on Vietnam's macroeconomic situation in general and the stock market in particular.

In the domestic market, motivated by the Government's solutions and the participation of ministries, branches and localities, Vietnam has many opportunities to achieve the GDP growth target set by the Government. Along with that, with the Government's reform and innovation solutions, the investment, production and business environment will be improved, actively supporting the development momentum of enterprises in the coming year.

In addition, some internal factors that are expected by investors' sentiment such as more positive foreign cash flow, prospects for upgrading, etc. can also be mentioned.

How do you think about the solutions implemented by the management agency to upgrade the stock market?

Upgrading the stock market from frontier to emerging market is a major policy of the Government, which has been closely directed by the Prime Minister in recent times.

In 2025, the country aims to upgrade the stock market from a frontier market to an emerging market under the Stock Market Development Strategy to 2030 approved by the Prime Minister.

The upgrading not only brings many opportunities for the Vietnamese stock market and market participants, but also contributes to improving the image, investment environment, and promoting economic development.

International financial organizations, experts, and market members believe that when the Vietnamese stock market is upgraded, it will attract a large amount of capital, promote growth in market scale and liquidity. Therefore, this is a great determination and a task that the State Securities Commission has actively implemented under the close direction of the leaders of the Ministry of Finance.

As we know, Circular 68/2024/TT-BTC has been officially issued, marking an important step forward, removing legal bottlenecks, meeting the criteria for upgrading of the FTSE Russell.

In fact, the non-prefunding by foreign institutional investors has been implemented smoothly, meeting the transaction needs of investors and ensuring safety and transparency from market members and related parties. Adiditionally, the revised Securities Law has also been issued, including many additional regulations to meet the standards for upgrading the stock market.

The Ministry of Finance and the State Securities Commission continue to work with relevant ministries and branches such as the State Bank and the Ministry of Planning and Investment to propose solutions to meet the upgrading criteria.

The ministries and sectors also actively implement solutions to create more favorable conditions for foreign investors' investment activities in the Vietnamese market, including amending legal regulations related to procedures for opening indirect investment capital accounts towards minimizing procedures and shortening the time for opening accounts, updating and fully disclosing the maximum state ownership ratio for conditional business lines, and limiting access for foreign investors.

Additionally, the State Securities Commission has regularly worked with rating organizations and major international investors to disseminate the policies, orientations and determination of the Vietnamese Government in upgrading the market; strengthened coordination with foreign institutional investors to answer questions and remove difficulties of foreign investors when investing in Vietnam; attracted the support of foreign investors for the goal of upgrading Vietnam's stock market.

The market upgrade depends on the objective assessment of international rating organizations through the practical experience of foreign investors. However, according to the records of international and domestic organizations, Vietnam has many opportunities for FTSE Russell to upgrade under the roadmap.

The management agency still makes the greatest efforts to carry out the next tasks to remove bottlenecks such as implementing the Central Counterparty (CCP) mechanism, proposing to expand foreign room, providing information in English... to meet the criteria for upgrading under MSCI standards.

In the context of many breakthrough policies and solutions to bring the country into a new era, what solutions will the securities sector provide to help the stock market develop more strongly in both “quality” and “quantity”?

2025 is a year with many important milestones for the country.

For the Finance sector and the financial market, it is also a year with important events such as the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the Finance sector and the 25th anniversary of the Stock Market's operation.

Assigning tasks to the Securities sector, Minister of Finance Nguyen Van Thang emphasized that the Securities sector should make great efforts through implementing infrastructure reform, improving service quality, especially attracting international investors, attracting medium and long-term capital for the State budget, for businesses and for the economy.

At the same time, it is necessary to create a transparent, safe and attractive investment environment, so that the Vietnamese Stock Market becomes a reliable destination for domestic and foreign investors.

To achieve the Minister's expectations, in the coming time, the Securities sector will continue to effectively deploy many solutions to ensure the sustainable development of the market, affirming its role as an important and main medium and long-term capital channel of the economy, contributing effectively to the country's economic growth, focusing on key groups of solutions.

The first, the sector should continue to perfect the legal framework and policies for the development of the stock market, focusing on perfecting documents guiding the implementation of the revised Securities Law when approved by the National Assembly, protecting the legitimate rights and interests of investors, creating motivation to promote the sustainable development of the Vietnamese stock market; continue to deploy solutions, meeting the criteria, towards the goal of upgrading.

Secondly, the sector should continue to focus on implementing solutions to arrange, classify, and expand the market; restructure the commodity base; restructure securities trading organizations in the market; restructure the investor base and the market organization to further expand opportunities for businesses to raise capital.

Thirdly, regarding the investor base, the sector should focus on the strategy of developing institutional investors through expanding the scale and developing diverse types of investment funds on the stock market.

Additionnaly, the sector should implement solutions, striving to soon upgrade the stock market from frontier to emerging market to better attract the interest and investment participation of foreign organizations.

Fourthly, strengthen the capacity of management, supervision, inspection, examination and handling of violations in securities and the stock market. Tighten market discipline and strictly handle violations so that the stock market develops transparently and sustainably.

Continue to invest in and upgrade modern information technology systems, ensure security and safety of information technology systems and databases to serve well the management and supervision of the market, ensure safe market operation, protect the legitimate rights and interests of investors.

Fifthly, actively integrate into the world financial and securities markets, meet the requirements of financial security, improve competitiveness, risk management, apply international standards and practices; continue to improve the quality of corporate governance and risk management of listed companies and public companies under international practices.

Sixthly, provide information, promote training, improve understanding and knowledge of finance and securities for investors, form securities investors with basic knowledge foundations, professional trading skills, increase the number of institutional investors participating in the market.

Thank you very much!