State budget collection estimated to hit US$60.2 billion

Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung

Since the beginning of this year, the financial sector has drastically dealt with delayed tax payment, revised up basic salary, pensions, and subsidies to ex-revolutionaries by 7%, tightened discipline in finance-budget in accordance with the Prime Minister’s Directive No.31/CT-TTg.

Spending for development and regular spending accounted for over 27% and below 62% of the total State expenditures, he said.

The minister admitted that the disbursement of investment remained slow. As of December 31, State capital disbursement reached only 66.6%. The disbursement of capital mobilized from government bonds and official development assistance (ODA) capital accounted for nearly 35.5% and 40%, respectively, he said.

The state budget overspending was estimated at below 3.6% of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), he said, adding that public debts, government debts and sovereign debts were kept under 61%, 52% and 49.7% of the GDP.

The amount of investments from social insurance funds, investment funds and insurers in government bonds increased by nearly 50% this year, Dung said.

Regarding the restructuring of State-owned enterprises, Dung said the State collected VND21.6 trillion (US$929 million) from initial public offerings of 21 businesses and pested VND18.3 trillion (US$787 million).

Dung said the sector will strive to increase State budget collection by 3% and raise the proportion of revenue from taxes and frees to over 84%, cut state budget overspending to below 3.6% of the GDP and public debts to about 61% of the GDP in 2019.

At the same time, it will rearrange and restructure SOEs, and strengthen openness, transparency and renovate governance of businesses.