VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Planning and Investment is making a draft decree that requires all information of State-owned economic groups and corporations to be made transparent before the public.

The draft decree, which is named the Decree on State-run economic groups and corporations, will be submitted to the Government in the coming time to replace the existing Decree 101.

Minister of Planning and Investment Bui Quang Vinh in a statement sent to the Government said that this draft decree aims to create a better legal framework for operations of State-owned corporations. Accordingly, parent companies in these groups must announce long-term targets and specific goals every year.

They will also have to publicize ownership structures, assets, portfolios, investment forms, investment capital, long-term and short-term loans, large-scale and unusual transactions.

Besides, these companies will have to make clear consolidated quarterly financial reports, structure, operations and change in ownership as well as their annual reports.

They will have to present regular reports on uses of capital, land, natural resources and wages for general directors.

The use of after-tax profits or ways to tackle losses during operation must also be made public.

In the drafting process, Vinh said, there were suggestions that regulations of transparent information were unnecessary as the Government may ask State-owned enterprises to proclaim information like large-scale public companies.

However, the draft editing team said that transparent information is one important solution to improve supervision over these companies.

Many National Assembly deputies have repeatedly required State-owned groups and corporations to announce information but the Government has just prepared a legal framework for this regulation now.

These enterprises for a long time have released unclear information while managing agencies have no solutions to handle this problem.

For instance, the Ministry of Finance last November reported to the National Assembly the total debt of 91 State-run groups and corporations at nearly VND1,300 trillion as of the end 2011, up 19% compared to 2010.

However, Nguyen Dinh Cung, deputy head of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said that this figure has yet to meet requirements for transparency.

Meanwhile, a document of the National Assembly Economic Committee shows that State-owned enterprises had total bad debts of VND200 trillion, of which around VND153 trillion belonged to State-owned groups and corporations.

The State Bank of Vietnam later rejected these figures in a National Assembly discussion session but failed to give accurate numbers.

Source: SGT