Nguyen Tuan Linh from the Department of State-owned Enterprise Development (Ministry of Finance), noted that, by the end of 2025, there were 695 state-owned enterprises (SOEs), with total assets of about VND4.5 quadrillion, revenue of nearly VND2.9 quadrillion, contributing about VND390,000 billion to the budget, a significant increase compared to 2021.

However, by the end of 2025, only 180 out of 616 enterprises had completed restructuring planning; no enterprise had completed equitization; only 17 out of 146 enterprises had made divestment; and revenue from equitization and divestment only reached about VND3,720 billion.

Linh pointed out that the SOE restructuring process has been facing many problems. The main reason stems from weak decentralization, complicated investment procedures, ineffective equitization preparation, and avoidance of responsibility by enterprise leaders and owner representative agencies.

Meanwhile, the requirement to promote the leading role of this sector for growth, investment and innovation, associated with improving governance efficiency and competitiveness of enterprises, is becoming increasingly urgent.

Bui Khac Hien, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Finance (Ministry of Agriculture and Environment), pointed out that the state allocates capital and assets to enterprises but doesn’t consider them as their real assets. For example, can allocated land or infrastructure be considered an asset for enterprises to mortgage?

Many enterprises hold trillions of dong, but cannot grow because they do not have the right to make their own decisions and are not allowed to maneuver on those capital and assets.

"We cannot sit and talk to each other about enterprises not growing and then blame them entirely, while the management and governance way is constraining them. If we consider land and infrastructure as capital, we must give them the right to do business with the capital. If we only assign land and infrastructure for management and exploitation, we cannot count it as capital to force them to grow,"  Hien said.

It is also necessary to clarify the role of ministries and sectors as exercising ownership rights or only participating in planning.

Restructuring is not simply about mergers or divestment

Nguyen Duc Hien, deputy head of the Central Policy and Strategy Commission, said Politburo Resolution 79 introduced a number of new approaches, requiring SOEs to rethink restructuring and governance so they can genuinely lead strategic and essential sectors of the economy.

The goal is that, by 2030, 100 percent of SOEs will apply governance standards of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It is necessary to change the mechanism for evaluating efficiency, shifting from target-based approach to overall assessment so that enterprises can be confident investing in risky sectors, innovation, science and technology.

Therefore, equitization, divestment and SOE consolidation must continue based on specific principles, criteria and roadmaps. At the same time, the restructuring of the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) should be accelerated, with a view to establishing a national investment fund to address investment needs and deal with underperforming enterprises more quickly, avoiding prolonged inefficiencies and waste.

"We want to have strategic autonomy, but if our enterprises are not strong, it is very difficult to achieve that. For SMEs to develop, there must be strong enough enterprises to lead," Hien emphasized.

Phan Duc Hieu, Standing Member of the National Assembly's Economic Committee, said the most important thing in the coming period is to unify the understanding of SOE restructuring. 

Restructuring is not simply reducing the number of enterprises through mergers, dissolution or divestment. The core objective must be to improve operational efficiency and competitiveness of SOEs and the state economic sector, in line with the spirit of Resolution 79.

To achieve this goal, he said it is necessary to thoroughly handle outstanding issues in finance, legal obligations and land - long-standing bottlenecks hindering the process of equitization, transfer and restructuring of enterprises. 

Many enterprises still have charter capital recorded only on paper but not actually provided with sufficient capital. Land land use plans are unclear and many assets and projects cannot fully determine value when transferred.

At the same time, it is necessary to improve the quality of corporate governance and strongly shift from the method of arrangement and divestment according to administrative thinking to market mechanism.

Tam An