MoIT to transfer five enterprises to SCIC in Q1

The Vietnam Steel Corporation is among five enterprises the Ministry of Industry and Trade plans to transfer State capital ownership representative rights to the State Capital Investment Corporation in the first quarter of this year. (Source: laodong.vn)

They included the Vietnam Steel Corporation, the Foreign Trade Freight Forwarding and Warehousing Joint Stock Company, the Vietnam Agricultural Products Joint Stock Company, the Construction and Import-Export Joint Stock Company and the Construction Investment and Building Materials Joint Stock Company, according to the ministry’s recently-issued Directive No 3/CT-BCT.

The move is part of the ministry’s efforts to implement the Prime Minister’s Directive No 01/CT-TTg issued early this year about speeding up the restructuring, equitisation and pestment in State-owned enterprises (SOEs).

The Prime Minister’s directive sets March 31 as the deadline for ministries, ministerial-level agencies and local authorities to complete the transfer of State capital ownership representative rights in SOEs to the SCIC.

The progress of State capital pestment and SOE equitisation has been slow in recent years, so the Prime Minister has asked ministries and local authorities to review and list SOEs which must be equitised or pested from between 2018-2020 to ensure feasibility. If the pestment and equitisation face difficulties, the SOEs must be transferred to the SCIC.

According to Nguyen Chi Thanh, the SCIC’s deputy director, State capital ownership representative rights in around 100 SOEs must be transferred to the SCIC. Thanh expected the transfer to be completed before the deadline.

After receiving State capital ownership representative rights, the SCIC would focus on implementing financial and operational restructuring to improve efficiency and maximise the value of State capital before pestment.

In 2018, the SCIC received State capital ownership representative rights in 14 SOEs worth more than 4 trillion VND (174 million USD), significant increases over sums received in the two previous years which were at around 1 trillion VND each. It sold State capital ownership representative rights in nine enterprises to collect 7.6 trillion VND in 2018, nearly three times higher than the cost price.

The SCIC held a portfolio of 144 enterprises as of the end of 2018 with a value of 20.94 trillion VND out of a charter capital of 85 trillion VND.

The SCIC reported an after-tax profit of 8.2 trillion VND in 2018, 30 percent higher than 2017.