Investor optimism following a newly announced tax cuts helped lift stocks on both national stock exchanges on Dec. 10.

"Investor sentiment was boosted after the State Securities Commission proposed to extend tax cuts for securities investors through 2013 rather than stopping at the end of this year," said analysts of FPT Securities Co (FPTS).

The commission has also recently proposed tax incentives for new types of investment funds, securities investment companies, voluntary retirement funds as well as a tax exemption for bonus shares.

Additionally, the State Bank of Vietnam is believed to be preparing to reduce the deposit interest rate ceiling to pave the way for a reduction on other market rates, FPTS's analysts said.

The VN-Index on the HCM City exchange closed up 0.75 percent at 386.69 pointson Dec. 10 with the value of trades rising to almost 484 billion VND (14.4 million USD), up 24 percent over trading value of Dec. 7.

The VN30 tracking the top 30 shares on the bourse was also up 0.86 percent to close at 453.69 points.
Gainers overwhelmed losers by 178-50 overall.

The biggest gainers were penny and mid-cap shares, such as Bac Giang Exploitable Mineral (BGM), Vietnam Electricity Construction (VNE), wood processor Duc Long Gia Lai (DLG), Petro Capital Infrastructure Investment (PTL) and PetroVietnam Transportation (PVT), which all hit their ceilings.

Together with Tan Tao Investment Industry (ITA), BGM and VNE were also the most active stocks on the HCM City market with each code seeing more than 2 million shares traded.

On the Hanoi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index jumped 2.03 percent to close at 52.71 points on an improved turnover of 244.4 billion VND (11.7 million USD), up 55 percent over the level of Dec. 7

Sai Gon-Hanoi Bank (SHB) became the most active code by the end of yesterday's session following a total trade of 5.4 million shares, climbing over 2 percent to VND5,000 a share.-VNA