Vietnam: a high-growth market going cheap

The threat of tariffs has shaken Vietnamese stocks, but long-term prospects remain solid, says Max King

Hoi An ancient town at twilight, Vietnam
(Image credit: Getty Images)

It has been 50 years since Vietnam was reunited after a 25-year war that devastated the country. For the next 15 years, the communist regime made a bad situation worse by encouraging their opponents – the skilled, the educated and the ethnically Chinese – to flee, mostly in small boats. Between 200,000 and 400,000 refugees are thought to have died at sea.

However, in the late 1980s, the government performed a sharp U-turn and turned Vietnam into a very capitalist country under autocratic rule. Since then, GDP per capita has risen from $270 a year to $4,300 in an economy that has grown from $6.3 billion to $430 billion, notes Tod Davis of brokers Deutsche Numis.

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Max King
Investment Writer

Max has an Economics degree from the University of Cambridge and is a chartered accountant. He worked at Investec Asset Management for 12 years, managing multi-asset funds investing in internally and externally managed funds, including investment trusts. This included a fund of investment trusts which grew to £120m+. Max has managed ten investment trusts (winning many awards) and sat on the boards of three trusts – two directorships are still active.

After 39 years in financial services, including 30 as a professional fund manager, Max took semi-retirement in 2017. Max has been a MoneyWeek columnist since 2016 writing about investment funds and more generally on markets online, plus occasional opinion pieces. He also writes for the Investment Trust Handbook each year and has contributed to The Daily Telegraph and other publications. See here for details of current investments held by Max.