Vietnam, Greece and Slovakia are getting a status upgrade.
Vietnam, Greece and Slovakia will be reclassified and join a new index in September 2026, FTSE Russell has announced this morning after its semi-annual country review.
This means they will get on the radar of different exchange-traded funds (ETFs) as well as become part of benchmarks that active managers use, potentially expanding their investor base.
Thanks mostly to the progress made in market infrastructure in the past two years, Vietnam will be reclassified from ‘frontier’ to ‘secondary emerging’ market.
David Sol, global head of policy at FTSE Russell, congratulated the Vietnamese market authorities on “the significant progress” aligning with international standards.
“The reclassification of Vietnam reflects the implementation of key market infrastructure enhancements and we look forward to continued collaboration to ensure sustained progress ahead of the target reclassification date in September 2026,” he said.
The upgrade is subject to an interim review in March 2026.
Greece, currently classified as an ‘advanced emerging’ market, now meets all the requirements for ‘developed’ market status, FTSE has announced, effective in conjunction with the FTSE Global Equity Index Series (GEIS) semi-annual review on 21 September 2026.
Yianos Kontopoulos, chief executive of the Athens Exchange Group, said the development is expected to “significantly expand the pool of international investors eligible to invest in the Greek capital market, attracting substantial capital inflows from funds tracking developed market indices.”
Egypt and Nigeria have been added to FTSE’s watch lists: the former for a demotion from ‘secondary emerging market’ to ‘frontier’; the latter to gain a ‘frontier’ status for the first time.
In fixed income, Slovakia will be added to the FTSE World Government Bond index in June 2026. The local-currency fixed-rate government bonds meet all three eligibility criteria of market size, credit rating and a minimum market accessibility level of ‘2’.
As previously announced, South Korean bonds will be phased in from April 2026 on a monthly basis over an eight-month period in eight equal tranches.
Fiona Bassett, CEO at FTSE Russell, said the country classification framework is “grounded in the principle of accessibility to global financial markets”.
“We ensure our indices accurately represent real investment opportunities and remain aligned with the needs of the market,” she concluded.
