Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue just approved the equitisation plan of state-owned Vietnam Rubber Group under which more than 11 per cent of the group’s chartered capital will be earmarked for domestic strategic partners, but not foreign ones.

Accordingly, of the group (VRG)’s VND40 trillion chartered capital (four billion shares), the state will retain 75 per cent or three billion shares.

Of the remainder, more than 475 million shares (11.8 per cent of the charter capital) will be sold through public auction, another 11.8 per cent will be sold to domestic strategic partners, and 1.22 per cent (nearly 49 million shares) will be sold to current employees and 0.02 per cent to VRG’s Trade Union members.

The starting price at the public auction is set at VND13,000 ($0.59) apiece and the Ministry of  Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) will act as the state’s representative in the stale.

The prime minister also authorized the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development to approve the selection criteria and be responsible for choosing the group’s domestic strategic partners (but not foreign ones) after finalizing the public auction.

The strategic partners will be subject to holding VRG’s shares for five years and the state will have priority in buying them back if the strategic partners decide to sell afterwards.

Earlier, in November 2017, the prime minister approved VRG’s five-year production and business plan for 2016-2020.

Accordingly, VRG is set to achieve an average annual growth rate of 18 per cent during the period, with total revenue surpassing VND40 trillion ($1.8 billion) and profit in the range of VND9 trillion ($409 million) by 2020.

During 2016-2020, VRG aims to effectively exploit its existing industrial parks (IPs), engage in second-phase IP expansion at favourable locations, and turn about 5,000 hectares of land plots in areas with comfortable transport and proximity to water resources into high-tech agricultural production zones with revenue surpassing VND1 trillion ($45 million) by 2020.

VRG was reported to possess a huge land fund consisting of 420,000ha of rubber plantationarea (300,000ha in Vietnam and 120,000ha in Laos and Cambodia).

VIR