Starting November 2, foreign investors will no longer be required to pre-fund 100% of their transactions, promising the removal of a major roadblock for Vietnam's market upgrade process.

The local stock market is expected to be upgraded to the emerging status by 2022.

Being allowed to short sell and trade at T+0 will help Vietnam improve evaluation criteria under global providers of financial services such as FTSE Russell and MSCI.

HSBC economists forecast GDP expansion of 3% in 2020 for Vietnam, the only ASEAN country they expect to have positive growth this year.

Vietnam currently does not have a mechanism to limit the failure of transactions similar to other emerging markets in the region.

Favorable conditions in 2020 are expected to help facilitate the elevation of Vietnam’s stock market classification from a “Frontier Market” market to an “Emerging Market” by MSCI.