Economic policies taking effect from November

9 policies to support cooperative development from November 1, 2024

The Law on Cooperatives is detailed in Decree 113/2024/ND-CP, which clearly states 9 policies to support the development of cooperatives from November 1, 2024.

Specifically, the State has policies to support the development of cooperative groups, cooperatives and cooperative unions, including policies to support human resource development, in which the State budget supports up to 100% of the costs of building and implementing training, fostering and capacity building programs; the State budget covers 100% of the costs for civil servants and public employees of state management agencies on collective economy, the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance system, associations, political organizations, socio-political organizations, and lecturers when participating in training and fostering.

Information support policies are published on the National Portal on Cooperatives and the State Budget will support up to 100% of implementation costs.

Policy to support the construction of a network providing consulting services for cooperatives, cooperative unions, and the State budget supports up to 100% of the cost to implement this content.

The policy supports up to 100% of the funding for cooperatives and cooperative unions that want to learn from effective models, including: organizing conferences and seminars to disseminate experiences; visiting and surveying; consulting and developing production and business plans.

Policy to support the application of science and technology, innovation and digital transformation, the state budget supports up to 100% of the cost.

Policy to support market access and research, state budget supports up to 100% of costs for participation in domestic fairs and exhibitions; costs for renting locations and operating some product introduction and sales points of collective economic organizations.

Policy to support investment in developing infrastructure and equipment for cooperatives, cooperatives, and cooperative unions to serve production, business, social security, environmental protection, climate change adaptation, production chain formation, and provision of processing and product consumption services.

Policy to support financial consulting and risk assessment by supporting the audit costs that the cooperative has hired an independent auditing organization to audit the financial statements of the previous year in the case of micro and small-scale cooperatives supported by the State with a support budget of 3 billion VND or more.

Policy to support activities in the agricultural sector by providing capital, seeds, equipment for applying science and technology when cooperatives, cooperatives, and cooperative unions convert to sustainable production, organic agriculture, and climate change adaptation according to projects from state funding sources.

Sufficient funds are required when placing an order to buy shares from 11/2/2024

Circular 68/2024/TT-BTC of the Ministry of Finance issued on September 18, 2024 amending and supplementing a number of articles of the Circulars regulating securities transactions on the securities trading system, including amending and supplementing the provisions on the need to have enough money when placing an order to buy shares, will take effect from November 2, 2024.

Specifically, Clause 2, Article 1 of Circular 68/2024/TT-BTC supplements Article 9a on stock purchase transactions without sufficient funds when placing orders by foreign investors who are organizations of Circular No. 120/2020/TT-BTC.

Accordingly, this transaction is regulated as follows: The securities company assesses the payment risk of the foreign institutional investor to determine the amount of money required when placing an order to buy shares.

If this investor fails to pay in full for the stock purchase transaction, the remaining payment obligation will be transferred to the securities company where this organization placed the order through the proprietary trading account.

In particular, the exception is: the depository bank where the foreign investor is an organization that opens a securities depository account is responsible for paying for transactions with insufficient funds and other costs, if any, when confirming the wrong deposit balance of this investor with the securities company, leading to insufficient funds to pay for the stock purchase transaction.

Securities companies are allowed to transfer ownership outside the securities trading system or sell shares by agreement on the securities trading system with the number of shares transferred to the self-trading account to foreign investors who are organizations lacking money to pay for the purchase of shares.

The transfer of rights must be at the latest on the trading day following the day the shares are recorded in the securities company's proprietary trading account and must ensure that the maximum limit on foreign investor ownership ratio as prescribed by law for such shares is not exceeded.

The depository bank where the foreign institutional investor opens a securities depository account is responsible for paying for transactions with insufficient funds and any costs incurred (if any) in the event of incorrect confirmation of the deposit balance of the foreign institutional investor with the securities company, leading to insufficient funds to pay for the stock purchase transaction.

Circular regulating new interest rates from November 20, 2024

The State Bank of Vietnam issued a series of Circulars regulating interest rates for organizations and individuals, effective from November 20, 2024.

In particular, Circular 46/2024/TT-NHNN on regulations on the application of interest rates to US dollar deposits of organizations and individuals at credit institutions and foreign bank branches in Article 3 on interest rates clearly states: "Credit institutions apply interest rates on US dollar deposits not exceeding the maximum interest rate decided by the Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam in each period for deposits of organizations and deposits of individuals.

The maximum interest rate for US dollar deposits prescribed in this Circular includes promotional expenses in all forms, applicable to the end-of-term interest payment method and other interest payment methods converted according to the end-of-term interest payment method.

Credit institutions shall publicly post interest rates on deposits in US dollars at legal transaction locations within the credit institution's network of operations and post them on the credit institution's website (if any).

When receiving deposits, credit institutions are not allowed to conduct promotions in any form (in cash, interest rates and other forms) that are not in accordance with the provisions of law.

Circular 47/2024/TT-NHNN issued on September 30, 2024 amends Clause 3, Article 3 of Circular No. 04/2022/TT-NHNN dated June 16, 2022 on amending the form of deposits withdrawn before maturity from deposit certificates, promissory notes, treasury bills and bonds issued by credit institutions to "deposit certificates issued by credit institutions".

Circular 48/2024/TT-NHNN issued on September 30, 2024, regulating the application of interest rates to deposits in Vietnamese Dong of organizations and individuals at credit institutions and foreign bank branches; which clearly states that the interest rate on deposits in Vietnamese Dong shall not exceed the maximum interest rate for demand deposits, deposits with terms of less than 1 month, and deposits with terms of 1 - less than 6 months in each period and each type of credit institution.