Vietnam to widen share trading bands from June 19

HANOI, June 16 (Reuters) - Vietnam said on Monday it will widen the daily trading band on its main stock exchange .VNI to 3 percent later this week as the market has shown signs of recovery.

The Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange's VN Index ended up 1.48 percent at 378.2 points on Monday, its third consecutive rise since last Thursday when its six-week fall ended.

The State Securities Commission, the market watchdog, said in a statement it will widen the trading band for shares and fund units on the Ho Chi Minh exchange to +/-3 percent each day starting Thursday, from 2 percent now.

On the same day the band on the over-the-counter Hanoi Securities Trading Center .HASTCI will also widen to +/- 4 percent from +/- 3 percent now, it said.

The band on the main exchange was doubled to 2 percent as of April 7 from 1 percent in late March when market regulators cut the band from 5 percent to halt a slump in share prices.

The main index almost trebled between August 2006 and March 2007, but has so far this year lost nearly 60 percent of its gain in 2007 when the market grew 23 percent.

Bui Ngoc Long, head of the marketing unit International Royal Securities, said the VN Index was on track to reach 400 points by the end of this week.

In the Hanoi market, the index also advanced 2.45 percent to close at 113.81 points on Monday. (Reporting by Ho Binh Minh; editing by Tony Austin)