Vietnam to restructure stock, bond, realty markets

The Vietnamese government is prioritizing restructuring the monetary, securities, corporate bond, and real estate markets this year to protect the legitimate interests of businesses and investors.

Making these markets healthier this year is part of the government's newly-released Resolution 01 on the country’s socio-economic development. It comes out in the context that economic headwinds and complicated uncertainties are forecast globally.

The country may continue to face difficulties like inflation pressure, high interest rates, forex pressure from U.S. Federal Reserve rate hikes, and lower global demand for exports.

In this context, the government outlined 11 tasks and solutions, giving top priority to maintaining macroeconomic stability, controlling inflation, and promoting growth.

Regulators will continue to run monetary policy flexibly and in harmony with fiscal and other policies. For the financial and banking industry, key tasks include stabilizing the currency and forex markets and ensuring stability of the industry in all situations.

The government is determined to restructure the monetary, stock, corporate bond, and real estate markets to enhance macroeconomic stability and national growth.

The resolution also sets out the task of merging, acquiring or restructuring six weak banks.

Prices of essential goods and commodities like electricity and petroleum products will be strictly supervised.

The government also focuses on promoting administrative reforms toward building an e-government and digital government; developing the national infrastructure system.

The resolution also includes the task of developing high-quality human resources associated with promoting research, development, and application of science and technology.

Vietnam’s 2023 growth target is 6.5%, while the average growth rate of the consumer price index is 4.5%. The economy expanded by 8.02% last year, the highest since 2011, and much higher than the government’s official target of 6.0-6.5%.

However, the high growth rate in 2022 is partly derived from the low growth base in the two pandemic years 2020-2021, at 2.91% and 2.58% respectively.