Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

HCM City – Vietnam ranks second in green bond issuance in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), according to the ASEAN Sustainable Finance – State of the Market 2021 report recently released by Climate Bonds Initiatives (CBI) and HSBC.

According to the report, the sustainable debt market in ASEAN’s six largest economies of Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam continued growing rapidly in 2021.

The record high issuance was seen in the green, social and sustainability bond (GSS) segments, reaching 24 billion USD, up 76.5 percent compared to the 13.6 billion USD in 2021; and sustainability-linked bonds reaching 27.5 billion USD, up 220 percent compared to the 8.6 billion USD in 2020.

In Vietnam alone, the total GSS value hit 1.5 billion USD least year, nearly 5 times higher than 0.3 billion USD in 2020. The majority of green bonds and loans in Vietnam in 2021 came from the transportation and energy sectors.

The country is the second largest source of green debt issuance in ASEAN after Singapore.

According to HSBC, Vietnam's bond market grew to over 70 billion USD in 2021. More than 80 percent of the bonds issued were government bonds, while development banks were the second largest issuer.