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The Hanoitimes – A 1,000 minimum trading lot will limit the participation of small investors, while the stock market is moving towards fairness and equality.

The Vietnam Association of Securities Businesses (VASB) has expressed concern over a proposal of the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HOSE) in raising the minimum trading lot to 1,000 shares to ease the overload issue.

A 1,000 minimum trading lot could reduce 40-50% of the total transaction volume on HOSE. Photo: Cong Hung

“The way out for such issue is to upgrade HOSE’s trading system, and the state authorities should speed up the process as soon as possible,” VASB’s Vice Chairman Phan Quoc Huynh told tinnhanhchungkhoan.vn .

According to Huynh, a 1,000 minimum trading lot would limit the participation of small investors, while the stock market is moving towards fairness and equality.

Huynh referred to opinions from some securities firms as saying that the move would cause negative impacts on Vietnam’s stock market.

Meanwhile, a higher minimum trading lot may cause a sharp decline in the trading volume for stocks of firms with large market capitalization in the context of unchanged stock value, said Huynh.

“With expensive stocks, investors may have to spend hundreds of million dong to buy the minimum 1,000 shares,” he said.

Chairman of SSI Securities Corporation Nguyen Duy Hung on his social account gave a more positive view on HOSE’s proposal, saying the trading system would be on the brink of collapse without appropriate measure.

“Raising the minimum trading lot to 1,000 shares is necessary at the moment to keep the system running,” he said, adding when the system upgrading process is completed, the minimum trading lot could be reverted to 10.

Hung said the overload of orders that forces the stock exchange to halt market trading is the result of a rapid-growing stock market that outpace the processing capacity of the stock market, as such, “a long-term solution is a must,” he suggested.

Newly-appointed General Director of HOSE Le Hai Tra previously said more developed markets such as Japan, Taiwan or Singapore had all risen the minimum trading lot.

He estimated a 1,000 minimum trading lot could reduce 40-50% of the total transaction volume, while taking the liquidity to a new level.

In another move, the State Securities Commission of Vietnam (SSC), the country’s stock market watchdog, has instructed the Hanoi Stock Exchange (HNX) to process transactions of stocks from the HOSE as another solution to ease the latter’s overload issue.

However, an option to move to the HNX would not apply for stocks under the VN30 Index, comprising 30 largest stocks on the HOSE.

The new change was set to take effect from March 3, 2021 until further instruction from the SSC.

Both before and after the Tet holiday, the overload occurred repeatedly on HOSE whenever liquidity in a trading session hit around VND14-17 trillion (US$608-738 million).

The SSC attributed the overload issue on the HOSE to the transaction processing capacity of the stock exchange that limits the number of transactions per day, while a recent surge of orders has exceeded the expectation of the market.

Reportedly, over the past time, due to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, both units focused on their main tasks, namely managing immigration work while developing the economy and COVID-19 prevention and control.

In addition, the two sides closely coordinated with each other to address immigration work as well as illegal border crossings amid the complicated developments of the pandemic.

Concluding the conference, Major General Quach Huy Hoang and Senior Colonel Do Ngoc Toan hailed the cooperation between the two sides, agreeing to continue working together to both manage immigration activities and prevent and control the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source: Baobienphong

Translated by Minh Anh

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is prompting preparations for the possibility of an invasion by desert locusts in the time ahead.

Khanh Hoa province, on the south-central coast, has recently been leading the way in attaining attraction from both domestic and foreign financiers when it comes to the gas and electricity sector.

Among the suitors is one from the United States, proposing the Millennium gas power project with a forecast capacity of 14,400MW and 17 million tonnes of storage for liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year. Joining in are Embark United Co., Ltd. and US Quantum Corporation to establish a 6,000MW gas power venture and a port warehouse to receive and process six million tonnes of LNG per year.

Japanese investors did also not ignore the opportunity to develop gas power projects in Khanh Hoa, as Sumitomo Corporation proposed to invest in a 3,000MW gas power scheme and a storage system for three million tonnes of LNG per year, while J-Power Co., Ltd. wants to invest in a gas turbine power project with a capacity of 3,000MW.

Despite a slightly slower approach, the province is also seeing the presence of more domestic investors, led by Electricity of Vietnam which proposed a 6,000MW gas power project, while Petrolimex wants to build a warehouse for around three million tonnes of LNG per year.

Those involved in the gas power sector all understand that developing such a project in Vietnam is a difficult task, as the country is still in the process of building its Power Development Plan 8 (PDP8). Nevertheless, the total installed capacity of power sources by 2030 is supposed to reach 137.2GW, of which gas accounts for 21 per cent.

Tran Ky Phuc, director of the Institute of Energy under the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) – the unit in charge of building the PDP8 – said that electricity demand in this plan is calculated lower than in the revised PDP7, reducing the forecast amount by 3-4 billion kWh in 2020 and 9-10 billion kWh in 2030.

Realistic needs

The development of gas power sources in Vietnam is the result of the exhaustion of fossil fuels, the limitations of hydropower, and the fact that nuclear power is currently halted and new and renewable energy sources only meet a very small part of the actual demand.

The Institute of Energy forecasts that Vietnam’s energy import rate will increase sharply by 2035 by nearly 2.5 times compared to 2015, from 54 to about 90 million tonnes of oil equivalent by 2025.

The increasing investment in the gas and electricity sector is a prerequisite for LNG imports. Data from the MoIT shows that Vietnam has become a net energy importer since 2015, with a net import rate of about 5 per cent of the total energy supply.

Meanwhile, the country started to import LNG in 2018, which is expected to reach about 3.6 million tonnes of LNG per year by 2025, as the domestic gas consumption is forecast to reach 13-27 billion cubic metres, but production might just deliver around 13-19 billion cu.m.

Import of LNG will continue to increase strongly between 2026 and 2035 to about 6-10 million tonnes per year due to the increased market demand of around 23-31 billion cu.m.

While the gas demand in Vietnam has increased sharply in recent years, Le Minh Nguyen, regional director of German MAN Energy Solutions SE said, “Onshore gas output is on a downward trend. By the end of 2020, the gas output of PetroVietnam reached approximately 9.16 billion cu.m, while the figures for 2019 and 2018 were about 9.6 billion cu.m and 9.7 billion cu.m respectively.

According to Minh, Vietnam’s gas field reserves are now estimated at 700 billion cu.m, which can be exploited in around 40-50 years. More gas supply will also be added in 2023 when the two projects at the Blue Whale field and O Mon’s Block B are updated.

Imports for gas projects, such as Nhon Trach 3 and 4, are only meant to happen in the short term. However, the initial investment capital was one of the main bottlenecks, affecting both the exploration of new gas sources and their exploitation. Initial investments in gas projects are very large and, for example, amounted to $6-7 billion for O Mon’s Block B field and around $10 billion for the Blue Whale field.

Strict conditions

Vietnam’s forced import of LNG for electricity generation has become an opportunity for US energy companies to participate more deeply in the country’s gas sector. ExxonMobil is cooperating with PetroVietnam and its subsidiary, PetroVietnam Exploration Production Co. Ltd., to implement the Blue Whale field, the largest gas field in Vietnam, located about 100km from the central coast to the east and holding approximately 150.79 billion cu.m of gas.

The gas supply of the Blue Whale field is secured in sync with the construction progress of the two mixed gas turbine power plants Dung Quat I and Dung Quat III in the south-central province of Quang Ngai.

However, in the long run, Vietnam needs partners to realise the diversified power source target, and the United States could support it. Yet, the first dialogue session on energy – one of five US dialogues conducted worldwide between Vietnam and the US held in 2018 – did not reach an agreement, despite efforts behind the scenes during the previous three years.

This dialogue session stopped at the trend of future cooperation, with some suggestions for development in the oil and gas sector yet leaving the renewable energy sector almost unchanged while coal-fired thermal power was not discussed at all.

According to the US, Vietnam should develop gas power plants using LNG rather than continuing to operate coal-fired power plants. This recommendation is not new but has now also been noticed at the national level.

The US proposal may be suitable for Vietnam’s target of diversified power sources, but there is no immediate progress because of the lack of a legal framework for electricity and gas. Even in the revised PDP7, the content for gas power remains fuzzy. It may take Vietnam up to three years to add this proposal to the new PDP8 and prepare the infrastructure for gas imports.

Since the first gas was exploited at Tien Hai C field in 1981, the country has exploited nearly 150 billion cu.m of gas, according to Dr. Nguyen Hong Minh, deputy director of the Vietnam Petroleum Institute.

Minh said that oil and gas exploration has identified a depletion rate of only 16 per cent, but investment in oil and gas has continuously declined in recent years. The demand for capital increases and may sum up to $13-14 billion for the 2019-2025 period, but each year only a few hundred million US dollars can be mobilised.

Tran Sy Thanh, PetroVietnam’s former chairman said, “The oil and gas industry has difficulties to attract investment with the current mechanisms such as the strict contract conditions in the revised Law on Petroleum.”

Besides that, some taxes are also creating additional pressure on businesses participating in this field. For example, the gas industry is subject to a water resource tax of VND100 million ($4,300) for each square kilometre of the used sea surface, while each exploration lot needs about 5,000 sq.km, equivalent to an expense of $10-15 million. Thanh said that no investor can bear such a heavy tax.

Inappropriate regulations are currently a huge barrier to investment in the sector. Hoang Anh Tuan, deputy director of the MoIT’s Domestic Market Department, confirmed that the contents in the Law on Petroleum and the follow-up Decree No.96/2015/ND-CP regulating oil and gas exploration Vietnam’s territories “are inconsistent with reality.”

Tuan cited that there are many regulations on adjusting the upstream sector – which includes searching for potential underground or underwater crude oil and natural gas fields – but not on the midstream and downstream sectors – the former of which involves the transportation, storage, and wholesale marketing of crude or refined petroleum products while the latter includes the refining of petroleum crude oil and processing and purifying of raw natural gas. Mid-and downstream activities are mainly regulated through the laws on enterprises, public investment, construction, environmental protection, and other relevant legal documents.

Another problem is that, when Vietnam uses LNG to generate power, it may not always be fully accepted. Morten Bæk, Denmark’s former Permanent Secretary of State at the Ministry of Climate, Energy, and Utilities, noted that the dependence on imported gas sources “will remain present in the future,” when Vietnam develops gas power. Bæk does also not believe that gas power can be the sole answer to sustainability and should only be considered one of many diverse energy sources.

The long process of project approval from competent government agencies and the serious impact of COVID-19 have helped mergers and acquisitions in real estate sector become more active.