Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - The Commission for the Management of State Capitalat Enterprises (CMSC) must continue to support managers of 12 strugglingmega-projects under the Ministry of Trade and Industry with the State’s capitalinvestment, heard a conference in Hanoi on March 19.

Speaking at the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh voicedconcerns over several limitations and obstacles that must be addressedimmediately, namely poor coordination between ministries, agencies and projectmanagers, confusion in the understanding of legal documents related to theprojects and the dismal financial and operational performance of severalprojects.

Deputy PM Binh urged the commission to step up effort to exercise the State’srights as a major shareholder and investor in said projects.

“The commission’s objectives are to work closely with managers to identify theprojects’ limitations and shortcomings, to make recommendations and proposesolutions to address them,” said Binh.

“This is crucial as the novel coronavirus outbreak is dealing devastating blowsto the economy, especially to the country’s railways, airlines and oilsectors," he added.

Binh asked the commission to ensure their reports and recommendations are readyfor review during the next Government online conference scheduled to be held atthe end of March.

As the State will no longer pump money into the projects, companies said theylacked the finances to dig themselves out. A lack of funding has already hurttheir operation and profitability due to increased input costs. RecoveringState capital remained a challenging task. Investors from the private sectoreither showed little or no interest in loss-incurring projects or were unableto buy in due to ongoing legal disputes.

He urged the commission to focus on improving the quality of human resources,saying it’s a key task that must be completed to restructure large State-ownedenterprises (SOEs) such as PetroVietnam and Vietnam Railways as well as toimprove their productivity, management and financial capacity in the long run.

Another key task for CMSC is to speed up the process for large SOEs includingVietnam Post, VinaChem, VinaComin, VinaFood1, Power Generation Corp 1 and PowerGeneration Corp 2 to list on the stock market in the near future.

The Deputy PM urged SOEs to make more investments in R&D activities,conduct extensive market researches, streamline and simplify organisationstructures to improve business efficiency. He reiterated the key role SOEs mustplay in Vietnam’s numerous national development programmes. 

Binh stressed that Government ministries including the Ministry of Finance, theMinistry of Planning and Investment, and the Ministry of Natural Resources andEnvironment must ramp up cooperation to review policies and to make necessaryamendments to SOEs’ investment activities, real-estate and State-ownedproperties management to reduce waste for the State’s resources.

According to CMSC, the country’s 19 large SOEs reported a profit of more thanVNĐ100 trillion last year and contributed more than 221 trillion VND to theState’s budget, a 17.6 percent increase year-on-year./.