Shares rallied yesterday on the nation's two stock exchanges after a deep decline over the past two days.

However, no trading occurred for 50 codes in HCM City and over 180 codes in Ha Noi.

On the HCM City Stock Exchange, the VN-Index gained over 1 per cent, reaching 502.58 points.

Gainers outnumbered losers by 135-76.

Trading value, however, declined 17.8 per cent over Thursday's level to VND822.5 million (US$39.1 million) on a volume of more than 48.7 million shares.

The VN30-Index also rose 1 per cent to reach 570.20 points. Among the 30 top shares that the index represents, only five stocks lost value and five others closed unchanged.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index added 0.78 per cent, standing at 61 points. There were 115 advancers and 88 decliners.

Market value totalled just VND244.5 billion ($11.6 million), as trading volume fetched 31.1 million shares.

The HNX30-Index, tracking the northern bourse's leading shares, finished the session 1.26 per cent higher at 116.25 points.

The temporary recovery in stock markets looked like it wouldn't last long after experts from the Spring Economic Forum held yesterday morning said that the country's economy faced difficulties in many fields.

A representative from ANZ Bank said there were few indicators that Viet Nam's growth forecast would be upgraded in the time to come.

The bank said that GDP growth in the first quarter of this year stood at 4.9 per cent, below the expectation of 5.2 per cent and last year's fourth quarter growth of 5.5 per cent.

On the gold market, the State Bank of Viet Nam held its third gold auction yesterday, selling 25,700 taels of gold bullions. One tael equals 1.2 ounces.

The central bank has sold a total of 53,400 taels after three auctions. The lowest price given yesterday was VND43.2 million per tael. ($2,050).

After the first three auctions, the gap between domestic gold prices and world prices showed no signs of narrowing. SJC gold was traded at about VND43.28 million ($2,060) yesterday afternoon, still higher than global market prices by VND4 million per tael.

However, the central bank has confirmed that narrowing this gap could not be achieved in a short period of time.

The bank will organise three other auctions next week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.