Catalyst for Vietnam's stock market

The large cash flow has been a bright spot in the Vietnamese stock market in the past two months. Photo: Dung Minh

Strong effect on welding test

Despite the strong fluctuations when the VN-Index continuously set new peaks, the large cash flow "invading" has been a bright spot of the stock market in the past 2 months. Trading sessions with liquidity of 2 - 3 billion USD have become familiar. Trading levels of hundreds or thousands of billions of VND in a stock are no longer too strange, especially stocks that have increased thanks to future stories associated with expectations of reform, innovation and growth prospects of the economy .

Typically, in the two trading sessions on August 18 and 19, stocks of infrastructure construction enterprises became the focus of attracting cash flow with many codes increasing dramatically with high liquidity.

Recently, the positive effect from expectations of accelerated public investment disbursement has supported the stock price increase. On August 19, 250 projects were inaugurated and started nationwide, with a total investment of VND 1.28 quadrillion. According to the Ministry of Construction , these 250 projects will contribute over 18% of GDP in 2025 and over 20% of GDP in the following years. The leaders of the Ministry of Construction requested investors to accelerate project implementation...

Previously, the information that Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank (MB) announced a strategic cooperation with Dunamu (owner of Upbit - the largest digital asset trading platform in Korea) added heat to MBB shares. The resolution on piloting a crypto asset trading floor is expected to be issued in August 2025, or later in September 2025. Accordingly, the crypto asset trading floor is expected to be one of the places attracting large capital flows in the future international financial center. At the same time, the new regulation (effective from October 1, 2025) allowing credit institutions to be the recipients of compulsory transfers of specially controlled commercial banks under the provisions of the Law on Credit Institutions to reduce the required reserve ratio by 50% also positively affected MBB's stock price.

In addition, the wave of subsidiary IPOs is becoming a significant driving force for two bank stocks, TCB ( Techcombank ) and VPB (VPBank). Specifically, Techcombank's leaders have repeatedly revealed the IPO plan for Techcom Securities Joint Stock Company (TCBS) since the beginning of the year. TCB's stock price has set a new peak since May 2025 and continues to maintain its upward momentum as the IPO deal is in the offering phase with an issue price much higher than TCBS's book value. In the near future, VPBank Securities Joint Stock Company (VPBankS) will also organize to collect shareholders' opinions and initiate the IPO plan.

In addition to adding products to the market, public offerings help diversify the subsidiary's shareholder structure, expanding the scale of the entire ecosystem.

Motivation from reform

The hustle and bustle of construction sites, the return of large IPOs, investors’ expectations of new movements… are all quickly reflected in the stock market - a barometer of the economy. It is not just a phenomenon appearing in a few stocks, covering a wider area, many experts expect, the capital market is also waiting for a catalyst to expand and transform in quality.

From an international perspective, Mr. Shengyong Goh, Head of Southeast Asia Research at CICC (China) assessed that Vietnam is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. However, the economy is also strengthened in sustainability thanks to fundamental changes from "Innovation 2.0" - as experts from CICC call it.

According to Mr. Shengyong Goh, one of Vietnam's bright spots is its proactiveness in negotiating with the Trump administration and reaching a 20% reciprocal tax agreement, in the context that many countries are confused with the tax policy introduced by the US.

The expert also appreciated the fact that Vietnam is implementing many synchronous reforms, such as merging administrative units, improving governance efficiency, streamlining procedures and issuing policies to support the private economic sector, such as Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW. These changes help expand growth space, while at the same time, creating a legal foundation for the capital market to develop healthily and in the long term.

According to Mr. Pham Luu Hung, Chief Economist of SSI Securities Corporation, the double-digit growth target in the following years requires an investment level of about 30 - 40% of GDP. In previous years, Vietnam's GDP growth was not really high and the economy relied heavily on the banking system. However, with the double-digit growth target, Mr. Hung said that it is impossible to simply rely on the banking system, but requires the development of the capital market.

“The government needs to develop and build a stronger capital market. In particular, Vietnam’s international financial center will be a new initiative, creating a mechanism to access capital and will be promoted rapidly in the coming time,” Mr. Hung emphasized.

In addition, according to experts from SSI, the Investment Law continues to be amended and has just started collecting comments since mid-August, which is also a catalyst. Simplifying the investment process for foreign investors in Vietnam and Vietnamese enterprises investing abroad will promote Vietnam's capital market. In addition, Law No. 90/2025/QH15, which includes amendments to the Law on Investment under the public-private partnership (PPP) model, also opens the door wider for project enterprises to issue individual bonds and list them immediately after issuance.

Expect a qualitative leap

It is expected that in early October 2025, the Vietnamese stock market will receive the assessment results from FTSE with high expectations for the possibility of upgrading to emerging market status, after many years on the waiting list. In addition to upgrading the stock market, Vietnam aims to have a credit rating at "Investment" level before 2030, thereby helping the Vietnamese Government and businesses access international capital markets at a lower cost, estimated to reduce by 2 - 2.5 percentage points.

According to experts from VNDirect, this is also one of the factors that will help realize large-scale infrastructure investment plans, such as the North-South high-speed railway, high-speed railways connecting China, the North-South expressway or urban metro lines. To achieve the above goals, Vietnam needs to continue to enhance transparency, improve corporate governance and strengthen the banking system, while accelerating the process of upgrading the stock market to emerging market status by FTSE and MSCI in the period of 2025 - 2027, to get closer to the goal of raising national credit by 2030.

Mr. Pham Luu Hung emphasized that reforms will continue and the result is an upgraded market. What needs to be done is not simply “opening the door”, but also the process of upgrading and renewing the “house”. Improving the quality of listed goods, strengthening corporate governance, accelerating IPO speed, divestment and information transparency… are tasks that have been raised for many years. The vibrant secondary market and the return of many IPO deals are opening up expectations for the increase of quality “goods”.

From market movements to policy adjustments, Vietnam’s capital market is approaching a qualitative leap, where capital flows are not only “injected” but also driven by expectations of substantial economic reforms. This will be a sustainable catalyst for market development in the coming period.

Strive for at least 20 large enterprises to participate in the global value chain

In the Resolution of the 1st Congress of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Finance, term 2025 - 2030, which was just passed, the targets on reforming the business environment, improving national competitiveness, and developing enterprises were clearly stated.

For private enterprises, by 2030, strive to have 2 million enterprises operating in the economy, 20 enterprises operating per 1,000 people, and at least 20 large enterprises participating in the global value chain. The average growth rate of the private economy is about 10 - 12%/year, higher than the growth rate of the economy.

For state-owned enterprises, by 2030, there will be at least 25 state-owned enterprises with equity or capitalization reaching over 1 billion USD, of which at least 10 enterprises will reach over 5 billion USD; there will be at least 30 state-owned enterprises with net revenue over 1 billion USD.

For foreign-invested enterprises, strive for registered capital in the 2026 - 2030 period of about 200 - 300 billion USD (40 - 50 billion USD/year); realized capital of about 150 - 200 billion USD (30 - 40 billion USD/year); localization rate of over 40% by 2030.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/chat-xuc-tac-cho-thi-truong-chung-khoan-viet-nam-d368110.html