Hoang Tu Duy left Vietnam in 1975 at the age of four. He holds a bachelors in economics and political science from the University of California, Davis and an MBA from the University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business. He is currently a senior financial officer at the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank in Washington D.C. He is also active in the community and for the cause of democracy in Vietnam. On several occasions, he has testified before Congressional committees on human rights violations in Vietnam. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Vietnamese American Public Affairs Committee (VPAC) and has been an active member of the Vietnamese Professionals Society (VPS) for the last ten years.

A glass half full or a glass half empty? The Vietnamese economy-its progress and unmet potential-can be viewed through the prism of the stock market which was launched in July 2000. What were the steps toward establishing the equity market? What are the obstacles toward further development? And how is equity financing and more generally Vietnam's investment climate important to economic development, especially in the context of the global economy?