The Hanoitimes - Equitising 93 State-owned enterprises (SOEs) is the target set by the Government for this year, but this seems unlikely since in the first four months only four companies completed their equitisation.
The Hanoitimes - Equitising 93 State-owned enterprises (SOEs) is the target set by the Government for this year, but this seems unlikely since in the first four months only four companies completed their equitisation.
Nguyen Duy Long, head of the enterprises renovation, arrangement and development section in the Ministry of Finance's Corporate Finance Department, said the slowdown of the stock market, apart from other macroeconomic difficulties, has had a negative impact on SOE equitisation.
But he also pointed out that the first quarter is generally a time when enterprises focus on making their financial reports, so the number of SOEs equitising in a year's first half is normally lower than in the second.
Dinh Quang Tri, deputy general director of the State-owned Electricity of Vietnam, explained that regulations do not allow State-owned corporations to sell their stake at a loss, and with the stock market being sluggish, equitisation has been tardy.
"Their shares can find buyers if sold cheaply, but it will be a violation of these regulations," Tri said.
Besides, to safeguard public funds, State corporations with a chartered capital of more than VND500 billion (US$24 million) operating in the aviation, post and telecommunication, petroleum, and certain other sectors will have to get a valuation done by the State Audit Office though they have already been valued by an independent consultant. This will obviously lengthen the process.
Equitisation kicked off in 1992 and was sped up in 2001. By the end of 2011 almost 4,000 SOEs had become joint-stock companies. Currently the State holds 100 per cent in over 1,300 enterprises of which around 600 plan to equitise by 2015.
KDT |