State President Nguyen Minh Triet on January 2 visited the Hanoi Securities Trading Centre (HaSTC) and opened the first trading of 2008.

Mr Triet hoped that the Vietnamese securities market would develop strongly and effectively in 2008, contributing to the process of building and developing the socialist-oriented market economy.

The Party and State of Vietnam always supports and creates favourable conditions for the financial and securities markets to develop sustainably under law, helping Vietnamese enterprises to boost economic activities and actively integrate into the regional and world economies, said Mr Triet.

By the end of 2007, the total value of shares traded on the Vietnamese securities market reached nearly VND500,000 billion, accounting for approximately 43.7 percent of the country’s GDP. Meanwhile, the total capital mobilised by listed enterprises through the securities market over the past year amounted to VND90,000 billion, a three-fold increase over the 2006 figure.