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| Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai at the meeting. — Photo cand.com.vn |
HA NOI (Biz Hub) — Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai affirmed the Government's policy of attracting investors to Viet Nam by improving tariffs and foreign investment procedures on Thursday at an annual investors meeting.
The meeting drew hundreds of foreign investors and partners seeking business opportunities in the country. Despite the severe impact of the global economic crisis, he said, Viet Nam's economy still achieved its growth rate target.
Hai said he highly valued domestic organisations and businesses that took the initiative to stimulate investment, enter into cooperation agreements with international partners and form joint-ventures in an effort to diversify Viet Nam's market and investment opportunities.
Andy Ho, VinaCapital's general director and head of Investment, forecasted coming investment opportunities for investors, as well as the growing potential of Viet Nam's securities market. Accordingly, the VN-index will increase in the last months of the year and may grow more next year. Viet Nam's stock levels are expected to increase 3 per cent in 2014 and 10 per cent in 2015.
Low inflation and decreasing interest rates had improved the country's investment environment, said Ho.
The event also provided investors the opportunity to brief each other on cooperation strategies for infrastructure investment, real estate and capital market development.
This is the ninth annual conference of VinaCapital, which started in 2003.
VinaCapital announced a plan to make one of its investment funds, Vietnam Infrastructure Ltd. (VNI), open-ended.
The fund would be split into two parts, one for infrastructure development projects and the other for a portfolio of listed shares, Ho said.
An ongoing national trend of converting closed-end funds into open-end ones that allow capital investors to withdraw from the Vietnamese market more easily prompted the decision. But VinaCapital is not considering changing any other subsidiaries, such as the Vietnam Opportunity Fund Limited (VOF), as they are not suited to the open-end model.
VNI was formerly a closed-end fund, with net assets worth more than US$231 million at the end of September. It mainly focused on projects in telecommunications, petroleum, industrial parks and urban development. — VNS