The Ministry of Finance (MoF) has said the supervision of financial results from State-owned enterprises (SOEs), carried out by the Committee for Management of State Capital at Enterprises, (or Super Committee) was “very slow”.

Vietnam National Chemical Group (Vinachem) is among
the five SOEs with losses in 2019.(Photo baodauthau.vn)

In a recent report submitted to the Prime Minister on the synthesis of financial supervision, performance evaluation and enterprise classification in 2019, the MoF said they received relevant reports from 18 out of 20 ministries and ministerial-level agencies with 138 SOEs.

According to the report, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has yet to send its reports, while the super committee only reported on 13 enterprises out of the total 19 SOEs. Among the SOEs providing reports, the super committee only finished evaluating the performance of five, while the other eight have not yet been finished evaluating their performance in 2019.

Regarding the reported results in 2019 of 138 SOEs, they paid VND113.8 trillion (US$4.94 billion) to the State budget in 2019, an 8.08% increase compared to 2018. They also had total profit after tax of VND83.16 trillion, down 5.32% compared to 2018.

The total revenue of these 138 SOEs reached more than VND924.9 trillion, an increase of 24.37% compared to 2018.

Among 138 SOEs, there were 133 profitable ones. Five which reported losses included Corporate 15, Hanoi Agricultural Import and Export One Member Limited Company, Vietnam National Chemical Group (Vinachem), Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines), and the Vietnam National Coffee Corporation (Vinacafe).

The MoF also reported six enterprises with overdue debt of VND112 billion.

Among 46 SOEs assessed on financial safety, four businesses were reported as financially insecure, while two businesses were reported with signs of financial insecurity.

Other businesses have not been fully synthesised and evaluated by their owners.

Combining data on 342 SOEs managed by the People's Committees of provinces and cities across the country, MoF said that the total revenue of SoEs in 2019 was VND173.4 trillion, total profit after tax was VND19.97 trillion, adding they paid the State budget more than VND49.2 trillion last year.

Nationwide, the MoF said there were 182 profitable enterprises, 12 loss-making businesses, 10 enterprises with financial insecurity and ten businesses showing signs of financial insecurity.

In this report, the MoF emphasised, “The Government pays special attention to the progress of monitoring, evaluating the efficiency and enhancing information transparency in SOEs. The Government has assigned the task to the ministry to synthesise and urge all relevant units to submit reports in 2019. However, four months after the deadline, there were still ministries and ministerial-level agencies that have not yet sent reports.”

Among the reports, the MoF emphasised that performing the ownership function in 19 large SOEs with total revenue accounting for 59.69% of total revenue of all SOEs, the super committee did not submit full reports, saying: “Their reporting activities are very slow.”

The Ministry of Finance requests the owner's representative agencies to report the results of financial supervision, evaluate the efficiency and rate enterprises in accordance with regulations, fully and accurately report the situation of enterprises and guarantee the reporting time limit.

Following the direction of the Prime Minister and in order to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of State management, the MoF was urgently reviewing and collecting comments on problems and recommendations to amend and supplement Decree 87/2015/ND-CP on supervision of state capital investment and financial activities in SOEs and their performance evaluation.

It is not the first time the ministry has commented on the delay in submitting the reports. Since the beginning of the year, it has sent documents to ask the ministries and agencies to be responsible in the supervision and evaluation of their SOEs.