Foreign investment in Vietnam stocks $5 bln: report

Investors place orders at Viet Dragon Securities Corp. in Ho Chi Minh City. Foreign investment in Vietnamese stocks stands at US$5 billion, including shares in commercial banks, insurance firms and major companies, an industry report said Friday, up from $4.6 billion at the end of last year.

Earlier industry reports had shown a steep drop in portfolio investment from $7.6 billion in December 2007. The current investments included $1 billion by foreign strategic investors in financials and $4 billion from funds and institutions not based in the country, the Vietnam Association of Financial Investors’ report said. Vietnam caps foreign ownership in listed domestic banks at 30 percent, with a 15 percent limit for strategic investors that can be increased to 20 percent with government approval. Foreign investors now have shares in a number of Vietnamese banks, such as Saigon Thuong Tin Bank, Asia Commercial Bank and Vietcombank, the country’s largest partly private lender. The VN Index on the main Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange has risen 70 percent this year. It added 1.8 percent on Friday. Source: Reuters