NASDAQ signs deal to boost Vietnam's stock market

HANOI, Sept 24 - The NASDAQ OMX Group Inc has signed an agreement with Vietnam's main Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange to support the development of the local stock market.

The world's largest stock exchange would leverage technology and market experience to strengthen infrastructure, efficiency and liquidity at the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and the Vietnamese capital market as a whole, NASDAQ said in a statement.

"This is an official and long-term commitment for further cooperation between the two exchanges and the two markets," Chairman of the Vietnamese exchange Nguyen Doan Hung said in the statement. The agreement was signed on Tuesday in New York.

The Ho Chi Minh City exchange opened in 2000 and now trades in shares of 160 firms and four fund units. It ranks among the world's worst performing stock markets, with the index so far this year having lost half of its 23 percent gain made in 2007.