Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Hồ Đức Phước reports a draft law amending seven laws in the finance sector at the National Assembly meeting on Tuesday. — VNA/VNS Photo Phương Hoa

HÀ NỘI — The National Assembly has heard the Government report on a draft law amending several points of seven laws, which could open up the bond market and upgrade the status of the stock market.

Deputies were told the draft covered the Law on Securities, on Accounting, on Independent Audit, on State Budget, on Management and Use of Public Assets, on Tax Administration and on National Reserves.

With regard to securities law, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Hồ Đức Phớc said that the amendments aimed to improve the stock market transparency and efficiency.

Accordingly, regulations about professional investors, initial public offerings, private placement, public companies will be amended, deputies heard on Tuesday morning, together with regulations on enhancing supervision and preventing violations and frauds in the securities market.

In addition, the amendments will remove bottlenecks to upgrade the status of the stock market.

Specifically, in the latest draft, professional individual investors are proposed to be allowed to participate in private bond trading, which is regarded to have high level of risk, in case the issuers have credit ratings together with collaterals or banks’ guarantees.

Allowing professional individual investors to participate in the trading of private bonds in certain cases, which currently mainly attracts the participation of professional institutional investors like securities companies, investment funds and banks, will help improve the market quality and create favourable conditions for the market to develop healthily, stably, safely and efficiently, he said.

Evaluating the draft law, Lê Quang Mạnh, chairman of the National Assembly’s Finance and Budget Committee, said that the committee agreed that private bond trading should be opened for individual investors. He urged that more thorough reviews should be conducted to raise requirements for issuers to ensure the appropriateness to the market situation, promote sustainable market development and protect legitimate rights of investors.

The committee also urged the Government to strengthen the credit rating of bond issuers to increase transparency and quality of corporate bonds.

Regarding private public placement, the proposal to expand the transfer restriction period from at least one year to three years – equivalent to that on strategic investors - should be considered carefully as these two groups of investors have different purposes in holding stocks.

The proposal might cause hesitation among investors which might affect the liquidity of the market and undermine the interests of investors in private placements.

The committee also urged the Government to improve the legal framework for private corporate bond to promote the market development and turn it into an important capital raising channels for enterprises.

To enhance supervision and prevent frauds, the draft law raised specific regulations about stock market manipulation deeds which are prohibited in the securities market, which got the agreement of the NA’s Finance and Budget Committee.

According to Mạnh, it is necessary to amend the seven laws to remove institutional bottlenecks in finance and budget in order to improve the business environment and maximise the State and non-State resources for socio-economic development.

The amendments are expected to come in force from January 1, 2026. — VNS