Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Ministry of Finance will maintain low service chargesfor investors and companies when trading securities products until June 30,2021.

The ministryaims to keep boosting the local equity market amid the negativedevelopment of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The decisionwas made under Circular 70/2020/TT-BTC earlier this month to amend Circular14/2020/TT-BTC.

Circular14/2020/TT-BTC was released on March 18 to amend Circular 127/2018/TT-BTCdated December 27, 2018 to regulate the service charges on the Vietnamesesecurities market.

Circular 14was developed to support the local equity market having been hit by thecoronavirus spread in Vietnam and other countries. It will expire on August 31.

Accordingly,investors and firms will still enjoy cuts of 10-50 percent in tradingservice charges for nine services.

A 10-percentcut of trading service charges will still be applied for the common stockmarket, the derivatives market, and depository service.

Investorswill also enjoy a 15-20 percent cut of charges for position management andmargin collateral management when trading on the derivatives market.

In addition,charges will be reduced by 30-50 percent for companies and investors in themanagement of listed covered warrants, position execution, securities transfer,and competitive bidding.

Companieswill also enjoy free-of-charge services of listing registration, securitiesregistration, initial online connection, margin lending through the VietnamSecurities Depository, registration for derivatives market membership, andregistration for trading settlement membership.

Based on thenew charge cuts, securities firms, asset management companies and investmentfunds will work to lower their charges to support the local market, which hasbeen hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

All changeswill be applied from August 31 and will be valid until June 30, 2021.

After thecircular expires on June 30, 2021, service charges will be subject to Circular127/2018/TT-BTC.

The VN-Indexlost 35.2 percent to hit a three-year low of 660 points in late Marchafter the 17th coronavirus infection case was reported on March 6, ending Vietnam’s22 days without community transmission.

Thebenchmark quickly picked up to hit 900 points on June 10. Since then, theVN-Index has declined by total 12.8 percent as the number of infection cases isincreasing in Vietnam and other countries, threatening the global economic recovery./.