Vietnam defines foreign holdings on future bourse HANOI - Vietnam Prime Minister Phan Van Khai has defined maximum foreign shareholdings in listed firms on the communist-ruled country's expected future stock exchange, official media reported on Saturday. According to Khai's decision, which was signed on June 10, total foreign shareholding in listed firms will be capped at 20 percent, state media said. Most analysts had expected the cap to be put at 30 percent. Individual foreign organisations will be limited to seven percent of the available equity, while single foreign investors will be held to a maximum of three percent, the reports said. Total foreign holdings in bond issuances will be limited to 40 percent, with individual foreign organisations capped at 10 percent and single investors at five percent. Foreign partner holdings in licensed brokerage firms will be limited to 30 percent, it was reported. The decision comes into effect from June 25. For several years Vietnam has vowed to open a pilot bourse -- which is expected to be established in the southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City -- but deadlines have been repeatedly missed and most analysts now say it will not happen before sometime in 2000. The main reasons for delay have been put down to volatility in Asia's financial markets and a lack of firms suitable for listing, as well as ingrained political mistrust of such institutions. Vietnam has been pushing ahead with its process known as equitisation where certain state firms are being sold off into partial or occassionally full private ownership. Key corporations, core industries and national utilities are unlikely to be equitised. Reuters - June 12, 1999.