Unlisted public companies must register trading on Unlisted Public Company Market (UPCoM) within three months of the date they are granted securities registration certificates by the Vietnam Securities Depository.

The earlier deadline was six months.

This was mentioned on the draft circular to replace Decision 108/2008/QD-BTC about the management of securities trading of unlisted public companies, which the State Securities Commission circulated on June 25 for comments.

The draft circular also creates conditions for public companies which have implemented initial public offerings or not gained eligibility for listing on exchanges to register trading on the UPCom market.

A decree issued at the end of last year about administrative punishments in the securities sector stated that companies must be listed on exchanges within one year from their initial public offerings. Or else, they could be fined 150 million VND (7,100 USD) for late listing.

Delisted companies (compulsory or optional) must trade on UPCoM within 30 days from their delisting. The same deadline would also be applied to public companies which were transformed from wholly State-owned enterprises.

Recently, many delisted stocks moved to be traded on UPCoM, including Song Da 19 JSC., Quang Nam Post Telecoms Construction & Services Corporation (QCC) and Yen Bai Cement and Minerals Company (YBC).

UPCoM is the trading floor for stocks and convertible bonds of public companies which have not been listed on Exchanges. To date, 147 stocks are traded on UPCom, 17 times higher than when the market started operating in 2009 with the total capitalisation of 28.9 trillion VND (13.7 billion USD), statistics with the Hanoi Stock Exchange show.

At the end of May, there were 998 public companies registered with the State Securities Commission.

Unlisted public companies are joint stocks companies which have their initial public offerings implemented or shares of which are held by at least 100 investors with charter capital of 10 billion VND (476,100 USD).-VNA