Despite the government's projection every year, many analysts now believe a workable securities market will not come into existence until the next century. The Lazard Vietnam Fund plans to call a meeting of share holders to discuss whether to liquidate that fund. Lots of them. A major one is dealing with the government and related entities. They just don't understand what foreign investors expect.
Corruption is an issue, too.
In 1995, the first investment group, led by Total SA of France, withdrew from the project after the government abruptly changed the location of the facility to Dung Quat, more than 1,000 km from the country's main oil fields. The selection of the location has long been attributed to the Vietnamese Communist Party's attempt to maintain the delicate political balance among its opposing factions. In 1996, the second consortium of six foreign companies thought they could do better by, instead, trying to convince the government for tax and other economic concessions if they were to build the refinery in Dung Quat. Fund managers and bankers believe this decision will deter serious foreign companies from bidding on major infrastructure projects in other areas such as electricity, telecommunications and water filtering and distribution. We now resort to state capitalism to build the material and technological foundation for socialism.