Merger appears near for Vietnam's stock exchanges

October 21, 2016 | 12:59 am PT
Merger appears near for Vietnam's stock exchanges
An investor is seen behind a stock market screen at a securities company in Hanoi, Vietnam on April 20, 2016. Photo by Reuters/ Nguyen Huy Kham
Officials hope that a single exchange, which is likely to be headquartered in Hanoi, will attract more investors.

Vietnam will soon realize its long-awaited plan to merge the country's two stock exchanges to create a single bourse, aiming to boost investment in one of the fastest-growing markets of the region, according to a news report.

The combined exchange will be based in Hanoi, the Saigon Times cited an anonymous source as saying, adding that the government finalized the location at a meeting on Wednesday.

It remains unclear what roles the new headquarters in Hanoi will play exactly or how trading activities will be coordinated and monitored. But the Saigon Times report said that the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange could continue to handle shares of listed companies while bonds and derivatives could be traded at the Hanoi Stock Exchange.

A new index, the VNX Allshare, will debut next week and will include 451 listed companies from both bourses.

The two individual exchanges remain small in sizes, which many say has made Vietnam’s capital market less attractive in the eyes of global investors than many other neighboring markets.

Neighboring markets all have a single exchange, and Vietnam should too, Tran Duc Sinh, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange spoke to the media.

Vietnam has been planning and preparing to merge its two stock exchanges since 2011. The plan was officially made public last year and the goal was to finish the merger by the end of the year. But progress has been slow.

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