Vietnam is on a roll

published 25 March 2016

Vietnam is a bright spot in the global economy: its official 2016 growth target is 6.7%. The country has become the most popular destination for foreign direct investment in Asia.

Cheap labour has made it appealing, but it isn't just a T-shirt and shoe manufacturer, notes Wirtschaftswoche. Tech giants such as Samsung and Intel have bases there. The 93-million-strong, youthful population bodes well for long-term consumption.

Index provider MSCI is likely to redesignate it from frontier to emerging market in the next 18 months, adds Tim Price of PFP Wealth Management. That will "open the floodgates to billions in foreign investment capital".

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Half the market trades on a price/earnings ratio of below ten. The VinaCapital Vietnam Opportunity fund (Aim: VOF) is on a discount of 23% to net asset value.

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.