Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) improvedits share, bond and derivatives markets considerably in 2018 and will continueto enhance the markets’ operation in 2019.

Last year, HNX’s stock market saw increases in both scale and liquidity.As of December 15, HNX had approved the listing of seven firms with aregistration value of more than 1 trillion VND (8.1 million USD).

Currently there are 374 firms listing on the northern exchange with marketcapitalisation of nearly 190 trillion VND. Average trading value reached 788billion VND per session, up 28 percent year-on-year.

On the Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM), the number of listing firmsand capitalisation value soared. As of December 12, there were 803 firmslisting on the UPCoM with capitalisation value of 830 trillion VND, up 16 percentcompared to the end of 2017.

Average trading value reached 374 billion VND per session, up 84 percentagainst last year.

UPCoM was first launched by HNX on June 24, 2009, to narrow and limit thetrading of companies’ shares on the free, unmanaged market and expand thegovernment-managed market.

To help firms listing on the UPCoM improve the monitoring of informationdisclosure and enhance transparency, HNX has launched the assessment progammeon firms’ information disclosure and transparency. This year, the programmehonoured 10 enterprises with best performance in information disclosure andtransparency.

On the bond market, HNX has continuously developed infrastructure systemsto meet new legal regulations such as upgrading programmes on bidding,transaction, information and websites.

The exchange is also perfecting its research on the organisation ofcorporate bond market and the plan of building a corporate bond portal.

As of December 12, HNX had held 255 bidding rounds, mobilising 165.8trillion VND.

The primary government bond market is achieving positive results in thedevelopment of long-term investors.

This year, there have been social insurance funds buying government bondsin the form of bidding. Life insurance companies also increased theirinvestment in bonds in the context of the development of the life insurancemarket.

The winning bid value of government bonds of the insurance sector in 2018accounted for more than 61 per cent of the total market winning bid value, anincrease of 48 per cent compared to 2017.

The bond market’s listing scale as of December 15 reached nearly 1.1quadrillion VND, up 8.2 percent from 2017, equivalent to 20 percent of GDP.

The average trading value was 8.7 trillion VND per session, down 3.3 percentcompared to 2017, of which repurchase agreement transactions accounted for 53.8percent of the total market trading value.

The derivatives market after more than one year of operation has also grownwell. As of December 15, the average trading volume reached more than 76,000contracts per session, up 6.9 times compared to the average of 2017.

Open interest (OI) – the total number of open or outstanding optionsand/or futures contracts – continued to maintain the uptrend, reaching 19,500contracts as of December15, about 2.35 times higher than the first session ofthe year. The number of derivative trading accounts currently stands at 56,000.

HNX leaders said the agency has developed a draft form of five-yeargovernment bond futures contract published on the HNX website, waiting forapproval of the competent authorities for official implementation.

Speaking at the conference to sum up HNX performance in 2018 held recentlyin Hanoi, State Securities Commission (SSC) Chairman Tran Van Dung said the2019 key mission of the securities sector was the formation and enforcement ofthe revised Law on Securities.

He asked the HNX to keep researching and perfecting new products to submitto the SSC for approval for implementation, boosting the enterpriseequitisition process and develop the corporate bond market.-VNS/VNA