Vietnam has the eight busiest mergers & acquisitions (M&A) sector in the Asia-Pacific region, a corporate M&A forum heard in Ho Chi Minh City on June 7.

Research on M&A suggests that the total value of M&A in Vietnam reached 4 billion USD in 2011, an impressive growth compared with 1.7 billion USD last year. In the first quarter of this year, M&A’s had already recorded 1.5 billion USD.

This area of business is expected to enjoy an average growth of over 30 percent in the near future and focus more on finance and banking, consumer goods and real estate.

When addressing the forum, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Dang Huy Dong stated that State management agencies have been keeping a close eye on M&A’s.

The sharp increase in the number of M&A’s in the past shows that businesses see it as an investment, a way of joining the market and help them to restructure their operations and improve their operational efficiency, he said.

The forum, themed “Creating Synergies”, was jointly organised by the Dau Tu (Investment) newspaper and the company AVM Vietnam. It attracted 30 speakers and 450 business leaders from the country’s top companies and groups.-VNA