Only 5 companies listed on Vietnam bourse after half year
HANOI - With only five companies listed so far, Vietnam's first stock exchange is flagging
on its way to be a leader for market economy reform in the still mostly state-controlled economy.
Analysts attribute the minimal listings on the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange Center to a lack of stock market
experts as well as the extremely slow pace of state-run enterprises moving to become stock companies under the
still heavily socialized economy.
The bourse started July 28, 2000, with four companies listed, and only one more has joined since, in
mid-December, despite repeated ''love calls'' to prospective listers, according to bourse officials.
Although stock prices for the companies now traded are up 2.5-3 times from the time of the listing, the rise is
mainly due to a surfeit of funds and only a small number of companies, they said.
Daily turnover is around 3.2-3.9 billion dong ($200,000-$240,000), with an average 70,000 shares changing hands.
''It is still very, very far away from the real function of a stock market, which is a forum for private companies to
collect funds needed,'' one foreign financial source said.
The Vietnamese government aims at changing 2,500 state-run enterprises into stock companies by 2005 to
expedite market-oriented economic reforms.
There were 5,800 state-run companies in 1998 before the program started and only about 370 were privatized
through the end of 1999 and just 135 of a targeted 1,000 made the leap last year, according to the Ministry of
Finance.
Most of the targeted companies for last year were operating in the red, bogged down in debt repayments and
slashing payrolls, the ministry officials said.
Kyodo News - January 18, 2001.
|