Impact of WTO accession on Vietnam's financial market

Workshop "Impact of joining the World Trade Organization - WTO - on Vietnam's financial market" organized by the University of Social Sciences and Humanities and the Konrad Adenauer Institute (Germany) on September 26, 2008.

The workshop was attended by economic experts from the State Bank of Vietnam, the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the National Academy of Public Administration, the Vietnam National University, Hanoi, the KAS Institute and a number of Vietnamese enterprises. The German Ambassador to Vietnam - Mr. Rolf Shulze attended and spoke at the workshop.

The reports at the workshop focused on discussing the positive and negative changes of Vietnam's financial market in the context of joining the WTO, on that basis forecasting major fluctuations and proposing solutions from the state's macro management policies as well as from businesses.

From a macro perspective, in the discussion “Impact of WTO accession on financial markets”, Dr. Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh (State Bank of Vietnam) commented: Economic integration increases market factors in transactions in the financial market, thereby promoting the movement of the economy in an increasing direction, creating a faster response of financial institutions, increasing competitiveness, diversity and complexity of the financial market. Integration also changes the financial position of enterprises and households, changing their behavior in the face of changes in the financial market. In addition, risk factors in the market are increasing with integration. This has a profound impact on the management of macroeconomic policies, especially monetary policy as well as its impact mechanism on the economy.

From the perspective of businesses, in the discussion "Impact of WTO accession on Vietnam's financial market - macro and micro perspectives”, Dr. Doan Duy Khuong (Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry) said that businesses are currently facing many difficulties in business such as: increasing input costs of production and business, import costs of raw materials, exchange rate risks in transactions... Therefore, paying attention to solving problems at the macro level as well as implementing specific mechanisms and policies for businesses will create a solid foundation for building a strong business community.

In addition, some reports of other delegates analyzed in depth the impacts of WTO accession on Vietnam's financial market from different perspectives and specific areas such as: the role of modern corporate governance towards transparent and professional governance criteria; interest rate liberalization as an inevitable need and the regulatory role of the state; innovation in the organization, structure and operation of state banks towards improving business efficiency and competitiveness in the market; the current status of equitization of state-owned enterprises as an inevitable need but still facing many shortcomings in the implementation process; discussing some basic legal issues on decentralized derivatives trading; the activities of investment funds and their role in Vietnam's current economic development...