As of last September, the total unsettled
bank debts held by state-owned enterprises (SOE) were as enormous as 415
trillion dong, or US$19.92 billion, according to the SOE restructuring plan
composed by the Ministry of Finance.
The
huge sum accounts for 16.9 percent of the country’s total outstanding loans.
More than a half of the loans were for state-run giants, the ministry said in
the plan it has recently submitted to the government.
Oil and
gas giant PetroVietnam is responsible for a loan worth 72.3 trillion dong,
while EVN, the country’s power monopoly, borrowed 62.8 trillion dong. Other
massive debtors include Vinacomin, with a loan of 20.5 trillion dong, and the
loss-beleaguered Vinashin, owing 19.6 trillion dong. (1 trillion dong = $48
million)
Figures
from the finance ministry show that as many as 30 out of 85 SOE’s have the
debt-to-equity ratio higher than 3, while seven particular enterprises possess
an above-10 ratio.
As
stipulated by the government, an enterprise is considered to be in a dangerous
state if the ratio exceeds 3.
Dang
Van Thanh, chairman of the Vietnam Association of Accounting and Auditing (VAAA),
suggested looking into the SOE’s loans to classify them as normal and insolvent
debts.
“We
should evaluate the financial state of each SOE,” he said at a conference on
SOE restructuring held Thursday.
“While
it’s normal for an enterprise to take out loans for production, what’s worth
noticing is that they borrow short-term loans for long-term investment.
“It’s
also inadvisable that the businesses are operating with losses and will fail to
clear their debts, which will affect the economy, the public, and the whole
society,” continued Thanh.
Thanh
said the SOE’s total assets and debts will be the foundation for an evaluation
of its financial muscle.
“If
total debts account for 50 percent of total assets, it means the SOE is in an
abnormal [financial] state,” he elaborated.
“When
the rate reaches 90 percent, the SOE is understandably in insolvency.”
Loose,
non-transparent management
Pham
Dinh Soan, former head of the Ministry of Finance’s Corporate Finance Agency,
said the multilayer mechanism on managing state capital at the SOE is to blame
for their severe economic offenses, with some infamous examples as Vinashin and
Vinalines.
“Therefore,
we should need only one institution -- the Ministry of Finance -- to take the
full responsibility for management,” he demanded.
Meanwhile,
Thanh of VAAA pointed his finger at the non-transparency, as there is currently
no mechanism for financial accountability on the SOE’s, and their operations
are extremely complex.
“Hence,
the financial reports of the SOE’s can say whatever they want about losses or
profits,” he said.
“Administrative
authorities have realized this drawback for years, yet they don’t do anything
to curb the phenomenon.”
“It’s
really incomprehensible that even the spending of trillions of dong was not
detected by the SOE’s.
SOE’s
should no longer be nourished
Deputy
head of the Corporate Finance Agency, Dang Quyet Tien, reported that in order
to restructure the state-run enterprises, one of the solutions proposed by the
finance ministry is to boost the SOE privatization.
Under
its plan, the ministry suggests finishing the privatization of 573 SOE’s by
2015.
From
2011 and the first four months of this year, only 6 SOE’s were privatized.
Soan
also said the SOE’s should divest from their non-core sectors, while Dinh Quang
Tri, deputy CEO of EVN, suggested selling those enterprises with ineffective
operations.
“The
government may incur losses from selling the SOE’s, but it’s still better than
losing the entire capital in case the enterprise goes bankrupt,” said Tri.
“We can
also dissolve the beleaguered enterprises to create conditions for the private
sector.”
Tuoi Tre
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