Vietnam plans TV campaign to teach public about Stocks HANOI - With just two weeks to go before Vietnam's first stock market is scheduled to open, the State Securities Commission is planning a nationally televised educational program to explain how it will work, a commission official said Tuesday. The 15-minute program is to be broadcast twice a week, the official said, speaking on customary condition of anonymity. The move reflects the difficulty of selling the idea of investing to Vietnamese, who were under a socialist, centrally planned economy until reforms in the mid-1980s began opening the country to the outside world. Although rising steadily, per capita gross domestic product is only about $370 a year. There is little public faith in most state-owned enterprises, with fewer than 400 companies of the 5,900 state-owned enterprises equitized since the government launched a privatization program seven years ago. Many of the rest are inefficient and operating at a loss. People are more accustomed to keeping their money in banks or personal safes, or using it to improve their daily lives. For many, in rural and urban areas alike, the first priority is to upgrade from bicycles to motorbikes or buy a good color television. Only two companies, Refrigeration Electrical Engineering Corp. and Cables and Telecommunications Materials Co., have been licensed to list their stocks so far. The official Vietnam News Agency on Tuesday quoted Pham Trong Binh, deputy director of the Stock Issuance Management Department under the Securities Commission, as saying up to 1.5 trillion dong (VND14,073/) of shares and bonds will be traded initially. Associated Press - June 27, 2000.