Blue chips were behind the fall in the market as the VN30 which tracks the top 30 shares on the bourse was also down by 1.06 per cent to sit at 532.85 points.—File Photo

HA NOI (Biz Hub)— Several new government policies, including tax relief for low earners and a new ceiling on deposit interest rates begin from today, but shares still took a dive on both the country's stock exchanges.

The threshold for paying income tax has risen from VND4 million (US$190) to VND9 million ($428.5) and the limit for dependents has jumped from VND1.6 million ($76) to VND3.6 million ($171).

Meanwhile, the cap on the deposit interest rate will be reduced to 7 per cent.

The recent downturn on the stock market has made investors extra cautious, which has resulted in the benchmark VN-Index on the HCM City Stock Exchange sliding by 0.79 per cent to 477.34 points with the losers outnumbering the winners by three-to-one.

Blue chips were behind the fall in the market as the VN30 which tracks the top 30 shares on the bourse was also down by 1.06 per cent to sit at 532.85 points.

Trading was sluggish and only 22.2 million shares, worth VND311.6 billion ($14.8 million), were exchanged this morning.

Only two codes saw trades of over one million shares, of which property giant the Hoang Anh Gia Lai Group (HAG) was the most active, with 1.8 million shares changing hands for VND20,200 each.

On the Ha Noi Stock Exchange, the HNX-Index also slipped a little losing 0.76 per cent to close at 62.28 points with roughly 10 million shares worth just VND73 billion ($3.5 million) being traded by the end of the morning.

Investment FLC Group is temporarily leading trade in the northern market with 3.2 million shares changing hands for VND6,300 a share. - VNS