Vietnamese shares had a good start on Monday morning, driven up by blue chip stocks.

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange gained 0.41 per cent to close at 962.33 points.

The southern market index was down 0.53 per cent on Friday to finish last week at 958.36 points, totalling a weekly loss of 1.2 per cent.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange rose 0.38 per cent to end at 108.50 points.

The northern market index rose 0.17 per cent on Friday to end last week at 108.10 points, marking a weekly decline of 1.51 per cent.

More than 95.3 million shares were traded on the two local exchanges, worth a total of VND2 trillion (US$85 million).

Large-cap stocks performed well to drive the positive market trend.

The blue chip VN30 Index gained 0.32 per cent to end the morning session at 934.64.

The gainers included Vincom Retail (VRE), up 3.4 per cent; Saigon Securities Inc (SSI), up 1.2 per cent; Viet Nam National Petroleum Group (PLX), up 1.1 per cent; and Vietnam Gas JSC (GAS), up 1.8 per cent.

Bankers led the market with blue chips such as Vietcombank (VCB), HDBank (HDB) and Military Bank (MBB) up between 1 per cent and 2.6 per cent.The afternoon trading session starts at 1pm. — VNS