The Merger and Acquisition Vietnam Forum-2011 is scheduled to take place in Ho Chi Minh City on June 9.

The Vietnam Investment Review under the Ministry of Planning and Investment announced the schedule at a press briefing in Hanoi on May 18. Its Editor in Chief Nguyen Anh Tuan said this year’s event will witness an “Investment Connection” exhibition for enterprises to promote their potential and strengths.

It would provide businesses circles with one more investment channel through exchange of project lists and information on merger and acquisition cases, said Anh, also head of the forum organising board.

The forum will include an M&A workshop, an exposition on M&A deals and Deal Awards. A publication on the overall view of M&A market in Vietnam will be circulated at the event.

The forum will focus on M&A opportunities in some sectors such as banking, finance, insurance, industry and real estate development.

This is the third of its kind so far in Vietnam with the previous two events achieving great success, drawing almost 1,000 senior business executives.

Statistics prepared by PWC and the M&A Vietnam Forum’s research section showed that last year the country saw the conclusion of 345 M&A deals with a gross transaction value up to 1.7 billion USD. The figure represented a year-on-year increase of 65 percent.

The EuroCham-Vietnam mission predicted a dynamic growth in the M&A market in the years to come as up to 17 percent of the business circles are likely to get involved into the market and some 20 percent to change their ownership./.