Vietnam's Bourse Marks 1,000th Trading Day, Launches New Website

Vietnam's Bourse Marks 1,000^th Trading Day, Launches New Website

The Ho Chi Minh City Securities Trading Center (HSTC), Vietnam’s official stock exchange, held a ceremony to celebrate its 1,000^th trading day on March 21 and launched a new website to facilitate both local and foreign investors.

The country's first bourse, inaugurated in July 2000, now conducts transactions every weekday for 28 listed companies with combined market capitalization of US$270 million, and 221 government and bank bonds valued at around US$1.66 billion, said HSTC Director Tran Dac Sinh.

Yesterday, the HSTC saw the debut of the bourse’s 28^th listing - the Hanoi Maritime Holding Company (Marina Hanoi), which specializes in domestic goods transportation and logistics services such as forwarding and warehousing and is also involved in the property market. The company reported total revenues of VND171.9 billion (US$10.9 millionn) last year, including VND16 billion (US$1.02 million) in net profit.

During the day, the center launched its new website at www.vse.org.vn to replace the previous one www.hcmcstc.org.vn. The site, carrying complete information on securities, listing and securities companies, and trading sessions in both Vietnamese and English, is expected to provide more information for investors.

Vietnam opened its second stock exchange, the Hanoi Securities Trading Center (HASTC), on March 8 in the country’s capital Hanoi. The HASTC will hold public shares auctions of State-owned enterprises and will be the OCT market from June this year.

• P.V