Delegates attend the seminar on Monday morning in Hà Nội. — VNS Photo Ly Ly Cao

HÀ NỘI — Japan will continue to extend support for Việt Nam’s stock market development through technical collaboration to boost equity, transparency and efficiency, said Vũ Thị Chân Phương, Chairwoman of the State Securities Commission (SSC).

Her comment was delivered at the start of a seminar on the Japan International Cooperation Agency's (JICA) technical cooperation project, called 'Enhancing Capacity for Boosting Efficiency in the Vietnamese Stock Market', held in Hà Nội on Monday morning.

The project is a follow-up to the 'Enhancing Capacity to Improve Equity and Transparency of the Vietnamese Stock Market' project conducted by JICA from 2019 to 2023.

The project aims to enhance Việt Nam’s securities market by improving management, oversight and functioning. It includes strengthening surveillance of SSC and stock exchanges to detect unfair practices, developing market intermediaries, managing listings and promoting investor protection and market transparency, Phương said.

Furthermore, it strives to enhance the country’s stock market integration into the ASEAN and global arenas.

The leader of SSC said that this moment signifies the start of a new era of growth for the stock market, aligning with the goals set forth in the Securities Market Development Strategy through 2030.

The Chief Representative of JICA Vietnam Office, Sugano Yuichi, said that the Vietnamese stock market has shown remarkable growth over the past 30 years, since it began in the 1990s.

Looking ahead, the Vietnamese government is actively working to elevate the market from frontier to emerging status.

With increasing interest from foreign investors, especially Japanese investors and a rising number of domestic investors, JICA has been implementing a technical cooperation project from April 2019 to March 2023. This project was to enhance the capabilities of the SSC and stock exchanges while advancing the equity and transparency of the stock market, Yuichi added.

Through this endeavour, JICA has played a key role in improving the legal framework under the new Securities Law, including related decrees and circulars, and in the overall development of the market.

"The Vietnamese stock market is gaining traction as an attractive and conducive investment hub for businesses. This is the driving force behind JICA's continued collaboration through Phase 2 of the project," Yuichi said.

"The commencement of Phase 2 at this critical juncture, amid a period of transition, indicates a new chapter, propelling the Vietnamese stock market to greater heights of development."

Chief Advisor of JICA, Kojima Kazunobu, said that the biggest challenge of the previous project, which was implemented from April 2019 to March 2023, was that face-to-face activities were not possible from early 2020 to August 2022 due to the impact of COVID-19.

As a result, most of the project period was conducted online, and the expected results in terms of hands-on support, such as improving business flow, were not achieved.

However, he believes that with the implementation of the new project, the effort of SSC and JICA could contribute to upgrading the Vietnamese market to an emerging market status and its integration into the international capital market.

By the end of August 2024, the stock market capitalisation had surpassed VNĐ7 quadrillion (US$280 billion), marking a notable 19.1 per cent increase from the end of 2023, which is around 69.2 per cent of the estimated GDP for 2023.

Since the beginning of the year, the average transaction value has neared VNĐ1 billion, up 31.3 per cent year-on-year.

Foreign investors currently hold about $50 billion worth of stocks, representing over 17 per cent of the market cap. These outcomes underscore the significant growth of the stock market. — VNS