The National Assembly Standing Committee has requested the Government to comply with the ceiling amount mobilized from government bond sales to ensure the national financial security.

The issuance of government bonds to mobilize funds for transport, irrigation and education projects and other works financed by the State Budget shall not exceed VND45 trillion a year in the 2012-2015 period, the NA committee said.

It added mobilization via this channel would be controlled more strictly in the coming time.

Previously, the Assembly and the Government allowed ministries, agencies and localities to allocate capital sources for schemes in a priority order.

Regarding the cap on Government bond issuance as demanded by the NA committee, Minister of Planning and Investment Bui Quang Vinh said such a limited investment amount could only meet 47.1% of the combined needs of ministries, agencies and provinces.

Due to capital shortages, several key project owners have had no choice but to delay their deployment progress, including 33 projects under the transport ministry and 20 under the agriculture ministry alongside 90 ones assigned to localities.

Actually, ministries and provinces have still proposed the construction of projects deemed urgent and essential but not belonging to the list approved by NA like Vinh University’s dormitory and the Danang Oncology Hospital.

Meanwhile, the NA Financial and Budgetary Committee insisted that the review to eliminate inappropriate works has yet to be well done. The Government has failed to clarify which projects or works would not be listed into the government bond program as well as how to deal with the outcomes caused by capital cut, it stressed.

The committee suggested other capital mobilization methods for projects, such as the build-transfer (BT), build-operate-transfer (BOT) and build-own-operate (BOO) formats to lessen the reliance on government bond sales.

Phung Quoc Hien, chairman of the NA’s financial committee, said in the long run it would be better to stop the annual bond issuance program as at present.

Each arising scheme instead will need permission from the NA to issue project bonds to make sure macroeconomic stability and the country’s financial security, he added.
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