Hanoi (VNA) - Deputy PrimeMinister Truong Hoa Binh on August 6 requested the utmost effort fromministries, sectors, and State-owned enterprises (SOEs) to achieve the best resultpossible in equitising SOEs and divesting State capital from businesses.

At its meeting in Hanoi, the steering committeefor enterprise reform and development reported that from 2016 to June 2020, morethan 218 trillion VND (9.4 billion USD) was collected from SOE equitisation andState capital divestment, up 2.79-fold against the figure recorded in the2011-2015 period as a whole, of about 78 trillion VND.

State capital divestment, however, is stillbehind schedule, it said, pointing out that under the PM-approved plan for2017-2020, divestment at 348 enterprises is to be completed within the period buthas been carried out at just 92, or only 26.4 percent.

Also head of the steering committee, Binh blamedthe problem on the slow revision of regulations on equitisation and divestment aswell as the lax implementation of the land law and the law on the managementand use of public assets, while noting that many enterprises waited until theequitisation process began before beginning to address land-related issues.

Some ministries, sectors, localities, and SOEshaven’t been serious in completing the task, he said, adding that the COVID-19outbreak has had an adverse impact in every socio-economic regard, includingequitisation, divestment, and the stock market, not to mention certain existingbarriers to the private sector development.

Noting that the remaining months of this year isalso the final period for implementing the equitisation and divestment plan for2016-2020, Binh asked ministries, sectors, and SOEs to exert every effort torestructure SOEs while accelerating equitisation and divestment to record thebest possible results./.