The Government on 26 June 2015 issued landmark Decree 60/2015/ND-CP (“Decree 60”) to lift the 49% foreign limit on ownership of equity in public companies, amongst others. This long-awaited Decree is issued at a constructive time, when the several new laws affecting investment are taking effect this July 2015. This Briefing summarizes the most important changes under Decree 60.
Decree 60 is intended to add vitality to the Vietnam stock markets and an extra boost to the equitization of State enterprises, as part of a plan to upgrade Vietnam from “frontier” market classification to “emerging” market classification at MSCI. It is reported that the shares with strongest liquidity on Vietnam stock exchanges are shares of issuers for which the 49% foreign equity quota has been used up.