The Ministry of Finance is exploring measures to make the most of land unused or inefficiently used by State-owned enterprises in a bid to generate revenues for the State budget.
In coordination with relevant agencies, the finance ministry will ask State companies to sell or transfer their redundant or unused land to raise capital for production and business activities, said Pham Dinh Cuong, director of the finance ministry’s Department of Public Properties Management.

In case enterprises have no plan to utilize their land and buildings, the State will take back them for auction or transfer to localities to serve the public.

State-owned enterprises are now possessing 155 million square meters of land, including workshops and offices, said the public property department.

However, it is common that State firms improperly use land by building houses and offices for lease on the land or transferring it to others. There are also quite a few cases in which enterprises have done nothing with their allocated land plots and left them unused.

This situation is beneficial to the State corporate sector but it brings an annual loss of hundreds of trillions of Vietnam dong to the State budget revenue.

According to the department, some enterprises have got land in prime locations because of their advantages and privileges though they have had no need to use it. But it is now hard to ask them to return the land.

For example, the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin) has up to 1,200 hectares of unused land, yet the State-run shipbuilder has simply proposed changing land use purposes into commercial residential and office land.

Cuong noted that nine million square meters of land allocated to State-owned enterprises had been transferred or had the use purposes revised, fetching some VND15 trillion for the enterprises. Some businesses use this revenue to adjust up their investment capital or relocate their production facilities to the outskirts.

Vietnam National Garment and Textile Group, for instance, has gained VND259.6 billion and used the revenue to relocate their production bases and develop a system of garment supermarkets in the southern region.

Vietnam Southern Food Corporation used the proceeds totaling VND727.34 billion from land transfers to invest in a storage system. Vietnam National Tobacco Corporation, with over VND1.8 trillion earned from land transfers and land use purpose changes, has moved their factory to an industrial park and expand production.

The finance ministry expected housing and land reorganization at State-owned enterprises would bring in VND100 trillion, or nearly US$5 billion, while relocation of pollution-causing facilities to outlying areas would fetch over VND18 trillion, and selling State-owned houses would offer VND3.8 trillion.

Economic experts indicated the paradox that while State-run enterprises are using land inefficiently, the private sector and business households lack sites for their operations.

SGT