The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange and the HCM City Board of Business Management Innovation agreed to draw up programmes to help city-run State-owned enterprises equitise and list under a memorandum of understanding they concluded last week.

"This will facilitate speeding up of the equitisation of State-owned enterprises in HCM City and their listing on the stock market, and we are committed to supporting them to carry out required procedures," said HOSE Chairman Tran Dac Sinh.

Pham Minh Tri, head of the HCM City Board of Business Management Innovation, said the areas of assistance will include regulations and procedures related to IPO auction and listing, access to funding, and advanced corporate governance to improve transparency and performance.

Ten HCM City-run SOEs became joint stock companies last year by selling more than 24 million shares to the public for over 345 billion VND (16.4 million USD), representing a 42.8 percent premium on face value, he said.

SOEs sold non-core businesses for 317 billion VND (15.10 million USD) last year against a target of 1.1 trillion VND (52.38 million USD), he said.

This year 20 of them are scheduled to equitise and divest non-core businesses, with the latter to bring in 1 trillion VND (47.62 million USD), he added.-VNA