The State Treasury of Viet Nam has so far this year raised more than VND51.24 trillion (US$2.19 billion) via Government bond (G-bond) auctions on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange (HNX).

In the latest auction held on February 20, the State Treasury offered a total of VND10 trillion worth of G-bonds with different maturities, including five-year bonds valued at VND1.5 trillion, and 15-year bonds valued at VND3 trillion and 20-year bonds valued at VND500 billion.

At the auction, VND3.95 trillion was raised, of which 12 investors spent VND650 billion for five-year bonds at the average yield rate of 3.63 per cent per year, down 0.17 percentage points against the previous auction on January 30, 2019; nine investors spent VND2.9 trillion for 15-year bonds at the average yield rate of 5 per cent per year, down 0.03 percentage points against the previous auction on February 13, 2019.

The State Treasury plans to issue five-year to 30-year G-bonds worth VND260 trillion via auctions in 2019 at an average maturity of some 13 years.

According to Tran Van Dung, chairman of the State Securities Commission, there were 573 listed bonds with total value of VND1.12 quadrillion in 2018, up 10.4 per cent year-on-year. Of the figure, the value of G-bonds accounted for 98 per cent of the total and the remainder were corporate bonds.

The market is forecast to have growth potential as its size was equal to 35.2 per cent of Viet Nam’s total GDP last year, which remained modest compared to other regional and international bond markets such as Malaysia (97.7 per cent), Singapore (86 per cent), the Republic of Korea (125.7 per cent) and Japan (211.4 per cent).

The Government has so far also approved the roadmap for the development of the bonds market by 2020 with a vision for 2030, in which the outstanding debt in the Vietnamese bond market is targeted at 45 per cent of the total GDP in 2020 and some 65 per cent of GDP in 2030. — VNS