Vietnam Premier Opens Door to Foreign Investors

Vietnam’s premier pledged to subject state-owned companies to competition and allow greater foreign ownership of banks as the government seeks to revive growth and join a key trade agreement.

Over the next five years, Vietnam’s state companies will focus on areas such as infrastructure that “the private sector cannot or does not want to invest in,” Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said in an interview in New York on Sept. 27. The government plans to devalue the dong as much as 2 percent by the end of the year and let foreign companies own up to 49 percent of local banks in the “near future,” Dung said.