FTSE Russell, Morgan Stanley work with Vietnam on stock market status upgrade

State Securities Commission (SSC) chairwoman Vu Thi Chan Phuong met with representatives from rating organizations FTSE Russell and Morgan Stanley Thursday to discuss Vietnam’s stock market status upgrade.

The visiting delegation included Wanming Du, director, Index Policy, APAC at FTSE Russell; Chris Williamson, head of Asia-Pacific, Index Investments Group at FTSE Russell; Stella Jaeger, managing director, co-head of Institutional Equity, Southeast Asia at Morgan Stanley; Young Lee, managing director at Morgan Stanley, COO IED AsiaPac; and Kapil Trikha, managing director & COO SE Asia at Morgan Stanley.

Phuong informed the delegation about recent stock market developments in Vietnam as well as policies that the government and Ministry of Finance have been implementing to promote development of the stock market and create the best conditions for foreign investors to participate in the local financial market.

She also briefed the guests on the content of draft amendments and articles supplementing circulars related to the stock trading system, clearing and settlement of stock transactions, activities of securities companies and information disclosure, as well as content related to pre-funding.

The finance ministry is currently collecting public feedback on the drafts, she said.

The delegation of senior executives said their major customers have given positive feedback and highly valued the determination and efforts of the Vietnamese government and stock market regulator towards getting the nation’s stock mark status upgraded from “frontier” to “emerging.”

The SSC leader thanked FTSE Russell and Morgan Stanley for supporting Vietnam in the upgrade process and said her agency was ready to discuss issues with the two rating organizations.

The Vietnamese government has shown determination to achieve the upgrade next year, which is believed to help attract billions of U.S. dollars into a stock market that had a total valuation of $240 billion as of end-2023.

FTSE Russell last month kept Vietnam in its watch list for possible reclassification to a secondary emerging market from a frontier market currently.