The information about the possibility of some listed companies changing bourses has sparked concerns about the liquidity of the shares of the companies as well as the stability of the market.


Nguyen Vu Quang Trung, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Securities Trading Centre (HASTC), on January 8, 2009, said:


The changing of bourses for listing shares occurred before when some companies asked to shift from HASTC to the HCM City Stock Exchange (HOSE). Changing bourses proves to be not a complicated issue at all; however, the interests of investors must be ensured.


If the stock market was as good as in 2007, listed companies would be able to easily issue more shares to increase their chartered capital. It is not because companies do not want to increase chartered capital, but because of the bad market.


We should keep very cautious when asking listed companies to change bourses. I personally think that the most important thing for now is to stabilise the market, especially in the current conditions.


The companies which do not have VND10bil will not be able to list their shares on HASTC, and will list on UpCom (the market of unlisted companies) once the market becomes operational. When will the market be put into operation?


The government and Ministry of Finance want to put it into operation as soon as possible. To date, 90% of works have been completed which means the market can be put into operation now, while the other 10% will be implemented during the operation like the upgrading, renovation and improvement. However, some problems still exist, like the legal framework.


The Ministry of Finance has promulgated a regulation for its operation, while HASTC will also promulgate a regulation at a lower level to guide market members in joining the market.


The State Securities Commission (SSC) has said that securities companies will have to sign a common agreement, as UpCom will not have a payment fund or credit contract to deal with the payment. However, we still need to wait for the instructions from higher levels. Besides, we have also wait for the government’s decision on foreign ownership ratio.


UpCom is hoped to be put into operation in the first quarter of 2009. However, as the 2009 Tet comes at the end of January, the operation may be delayed for some time. The ripe moment, I think, is when the world’s economy recovers and the stock market shows optimistic signs.


However, the current regulations stipulate that the companies on UPCom also have to have chartered capital of no less than VND10bil, is this right?


Some companies on HASTC, including Viglacera, which had less than VND10bil, have successfully raised capital to over VND10bil. Raising capital to VND10bil will not be as difficult as raising capital to VND80bil.


HASTC has been recommending that companies raise capital for a long time, warning that if companies cannot meet the requirements on capital, they will have to change bourses.


In some cases, if companies really cannot meet the set requirements, the revoking of listing will occur, and this is a normal thing that the market will have to get used to.


Will there be any changes in the form of transactions or regulations of transactions once companies go to UpCom?


Investors will not have to open new accounts to make transactions. In general, the investors’ transaction capability will be kept unchanged. As there will be several markets operating, enterprises will be able to shift to list on HOSE or HASTC, if they meet the requirements of the markets.


I think we should not bring 50 companies from HCM City to Hanoi at once. Companies themselves have been trying to increase chartered capital to stay on the HCM City bourse. Therefore, the delay of the deadline for capital increase will help companies a lot.