VietNamNet Bridge – A Ministry of Finance’s report shows that 12 state owned economic groups are incurring the big debt of 218 trillion dong. The four biggest debtors include: PetroVietnam (72,300 billion dong), the Electricity of Vietnam (62,800 billion dong), Vinacomin (20,500 billion dong) and Vinashin (19,600 billion dong). All of them are the biggest enterprises in their business fields, who have been acting as the “motive force” to help develop the industries.

According to the state owned enterprise restructuring plan initiated by the Ministry of Finance and shown at the regularly April government meeting, the total bank debts of big state owned enterprises (SOEs) had reached 415,347 billion dong by the end of September 2011, or 16.9 percent of the total outstanding loans.

Of the debt amount, more than 50 percent is incurred by 12 economic groups (218,738 billion dong), amounting to 8.76 percent of the total outstanding loans of the whole banking system.

Also according to the plan, 30 out of 85 economic groups and general corporations have the ratio of accounts payable on stockholder equity higher than 3. Especially, seven economic groups and general corporations have the sky high ratios of over 10. These include Song Da Group, Transport Work Construction Corporation No. 1, Transport Work Construction Corporation No. 5, Transport Work Construction Corporation No. 8, Military Petroleum Corporation, Thanh An Corporation and the Vietnam Expressway Development Corporation.

Vietnam has had 1309 SOEs by October 2011, including 11 economic groups, 11 special general corporations and 74 general corporations. The total assets of the SOEs had reached 1760 trillion dong, while the stockholder equity 700 trillion dong.

In 2010, SOEs made up 34 percent of the whole country’s gross domestic products GDP.

Most of the SOEs have been reportedly making profits, thus paying big tax sums to the state budget. These include PetroVietnam (oil and gas sector), VNPT (telecommunication), Vinacomin (coal miner), Viettel (telecommunication). Song Da (construction), the Northern and Southern Food Corporations and the Saigon Trade Corporation.

Nevertheless, many other economic groups reportedly incurred big losses, such as EVN, which took a loss of 12,313 billion dong in 2010 and 24,262 billion dong by the end of 2010. The big losers also include the tea corporation, military petroleum and waterways work construction corporation. The total accumulative loss incurred by the “big guys” had climbed to 26,110 billion dong by December 31, 2011.

The ministry, which cited the figures about the big losses and debts, pointed out that a lot of economic groups and general corporations still cannot meet the requirements on financial safety. They are facing latent risks which may lead to the collapse in the future.

Especially, a lot of them injected money in stocks and financial investment deals in the previous years, while the investment deals have not been profitable due to the slide of the stock market.

In recent days, the public has heard rapid-fire pieces of news about the huge debts incurred by the “big guys”, who take responsibility of leading the national economy.

After Vinashin stirred up the public with the huge debts of trillions of dong, Vinalines has also been found as incurring big debts, while its senior executives have been arrested.

Most recently, the Ministry of Construction has requested the Ministry of Finance to seek the Prime Minister’s permission to use the money from the fund for foreign debt payment to pay the debt for the Song Da Group. This is the 437 billion dong debt Song Da is owing to the French Natixis.

Besides, the Ha Long Cement Joint Stock Company, a subsidiary of Song Da Group, will also have to pay the debt of 60 billion dong to NIB.

A US dollar is equal to 20,000 Vietnam dong.

Source: VTC, VEF