Vietnam among most attractive investment destinations in ASEAN

The outlook is an annual study to offer insights and perspectives into the private equity market in Vietnam.

Vietnam’s economy achieved GDP growth of 7.08% (in 2018), the highest in a decade, well-controlled inflation of 3.54% and a 9% increase in FDI, in spite of a huge foreign capital outflow from emerging markets in Asia due to the FED’s interest rate rise and the US-China Trade war.

Vietnam’s stock market in 2018 was characterised by a fall of 25% in the VN-Index, from the peak of 1,211 in April to 892.5 at the end of the year, negatively impacted by what happened in the global and Asian markets. SOE’s equitisation activities were slow, causing a lack of large value investment opportunities.

Robust expansion of the start-up ecosystem, recording US$889 million of investment, triple value compared to 2017, has made Vietnam one of the most dynamic investment destinations in Southeast Asia (next to Singapore).

The private sector is seen as one of the four key drivers of Vietnam’s economy in 2019, especially with the strong development of start-ups. Technology start-ups lead the trend with fintech, e-commerce, e-learning and travel tech.

There is expected to be more policies and mechanisms in favour of the development of the private sector.