Vietnam to test stock-trading system HANOI - The Vietnamese government has approved a plan to test a trial stock-trading system in Ho Chi Minh City, an official of the market watchdog said on Monday. The official at the State Securities Commission (SSC) said the plan had been approved by Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in mid-February and that preparations were under way. The communist government has said it plans to open a stock market in Ho Chi Minh City this year. ``We have started preparing for the tests but now it's still too early to say when it will be up and running,'' the SSC official told Reuters. According to the SSC plan submitted to the government, the commission would test a semi-computerised system in Ho Chi Minh City in April before installation of a full trading floor. Monday's Saigon Times Daily said the Finance Ministry would provide the SSC funds to upgrade equipment and buy software to carry out the test. It said the state-run Corporation of Financing and Promoting Technology would be responsible for supplying suitable software for the tests, which would start on April 30. April 30 is the 25th anniversary of communist victory in the Vietnam War when North Vietnamese troops captured Saigon, capital of U.S.-backed South Vietnam, and renamed it Ho Chi Minh City. The government's plan to open a stock market was first mooted in the early 1990s, but it encountered initial political resistance and then unsuitable market conditions. Several deadlines to open the market were missed last year, mainly because of a lack of a trading system and a dearth of suitable companies to list. An SSC official said this month the commission had sufficient equipment for the trial and would not have to open a tender. He said tenders to purchase equipment for a full trading floor would be held in June or July. Some financial analysts have suggested Vietnam might install and use the semi-computerised SSC system to open the bourse then tender for a more sophisticated network, which local media have said would cost an estimated 109 billion dong ($7.76 million). Last month, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai approved a $13.7 million plan to upgrade a building in Ho Chi Minh City that would house the market. Initially a Vietnamese bourse is expected to operate like an over-the-counter market. Analysts say a fully fledged stock market is likely to take several more years to develop. Reuters - February 27, 2000.