Minister of Finance Ho Duc Phoc said ministries and branches have agreed that civil and economic relations will not be criminalized and recent cases serve as an alert for the market to return to normal and healthy operation. 

Phoc said on April 25 the Ministry of Finance (MOF) worked with relevant agencies such as the State Bank of Vietnam (SBV), Ministry of Public Security and others, affirming that there have been many false rumours spread among the public. The rumors have upset the stock market and caused the VN Index to decrease.

“We have policies to protect investors’ benefits. Even  investors and enterprises which commit violations will be helped to fix the mistakes to stabilize production and business, thus ensuring benefits for shareholders and jobs for workers, which will help enterprises develop again,” Phoc said. 

The minister said that the goal of state management agencies is to be sure that the stock market develops in a healthy and transparent way, and benefits investors, businesses and securities issuers. 

Implementing the direction by the Prime Minister, MOF has had working sessions with agencies to discuss solutions to stabilize the capital market, the finance market and the stock market. 

“We have agreed that economic relations won’t be criminalized,” Phoc said. 

MOF has disseminated information to heighten people’s awareness of laws, especially Enterprise Law, Securities Law and related regulations, so that investors can choose and take responsibilities for their investment decisions. Meanwhile, securities issuers must strictly observe the laws in order to avoid manipulation, and auditing firms must be sure that audited reports provide true information. 

Auditing firms directly check the audit work of the issuers and also examine the auditing companies that have audited the businesses. If serious violations are found, licenses will be revoked and independent audit units will be punished for errors. 

“We think that the handling of violations is individual and particular.  This is an action to protect the interests of investors and issuers. MOF will closely supervise the process of issuance as well as transactions in the stock market. When detecting problems, we will examine and inspect transactions and handle the cases in accordance with the laws,” Phoc said. 

He said that the stock market operation not only has to follow the rules of the market, but also has to observe the laws. There must be the management of the state in the market. 

“If the market operation deviates from the laws, if members of the market commit the actions of circumvent the laws, or exploit the market to distort legal regulations, they must be punished heavily,” he said.

Luong Bang