Vietnam - NA agrees to minimum pay rise proposal

VietNamNet Bridge – The current National Assembly session on November 10 approved a resolution on State budget estimates for 2013, allowing the government to raise the minimum monthly wage for State employees as from July 2013.

Accordingly, workers who enjoy salaries and allowances from the State budget will have a minimum monthly wage of VND1,150,000, VND100,000 more than the current level.

The minimum level should have been raised to VND1,300,000 as from May 2013 under an approved salary reform roadmap.

However, Minister of Finance Vuong Dinh Hue earlier told the National Assembly that the government could not mobilise approximately VND60,000 billion for pay rise as scheduled.

Taking into account financial sources, Hue proposed that the government allocate VND20,700 billion to pay rise, meaning the minimum level will be raised to VND1,150,000 per month.

Hue said the total sum will be mostly raised from public investment cuts, government bond issuance, 10 percent savings from State budget spending, and spending cuts from value added tax (VAT) refunds.

In the newly approved resolution, the NA asked the government to keep a tight grip on expenses as estimated to allocate additional funds for salary reform.

The resolution, voted by more than 90 percent of the lawmakers, stipulates that total State budget revenues for 2013 are estimated at VND816,000 billion and total budget deficit will stand at VND162,000 billion or 4.8 percent of GDP.

VietNamNet/VOV

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