State auditors are pushing Prime Minister Phan Van Khai for permission to publish the accounts of the country's biggest 14 corporations, in a significant shift in attitude towards disclosing the financial health of state-owned enterprises.
The move is intended to spur the performance of businesses in the state sector and to boost prospects for floating state corporations ahead of the country opening its first stock exchange, according to officials quoted in the state-owned Vietnam Investment Review.
'Greater financial disclosure by these corporations would . . . provide their potential business partners . . . with much more confidence,' one official said. 'Some corporations have backed down from plans to issue bonds because . . . their unclear financial status has scared off investors.' Vietnam last year took the unprecedented step of auditing the 14 biggest state-owned-enterprises - including Vietnam Airlines, Vietnam Post and Telecommunications and the national power, steel, cement and coal corporations.
Those audit reports were submitted to the prime minister's office but have not yet been made public, although the official said that audits this year would also include government entities in the paper, coffee and shipbuilding sectors.
The lack of financial information on state-owned enterprises has complicated privatisation and the lack of detailed information has thwarted attempts to raise capital for much needed modernisation.
It has also raised serious doubts about the government's intention to open a stock exchange, a proposal first mooted in 1994 but which now looks unlikely before the middle of next year.
