Only allocate reasonable costs to electricity prices, not all EVN losses
In the third draft of the Decree amending and supplementing Decree 72/2025 on the mechanism and time for adjusting average retail electricity prices, the Ministry of Industry and Trade proposed to add a provision allowing Vietnam Electricity Group (EVN) to calculate other previously fully accounted expenses into average retail electricity prices.
In an interview with Lao Dong, Associate Professor, Dr. Ngo Tri Long said that allowing uncharged costs to be included in electricity prices should be viewed in three axes of benefits: State - Enterprise - Consumer.
To both remove difficulties for EVN, protect the interests of the people and ensure compliance with the law, option 2 only handles direct expenses that have not been compensated from 2022 until before this decree takes effect, not applicable for the following years.
"Separate reasonable and unreasonable costs, only objective and valid costs are included in the electricity price; EVN must bear the unreasonable costs. All costs included in electricity prices must be audited, widely announced and subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Finance and the State Audit" - this expert emphasized.
According to Mr. Ha Dang Son - Director of the Center for Energy Research and Green Growth, it is appropriate to include unusual arising costs such as fuel price differences for power generation or costs arising from implementing priority and preferential policies of the Government in electricity prices.
In EVN's Financial Report, since 2021, the Group's business activities have been losing money in the electricity sales service segment due to the failure to adjust electricity prices in a timely manner, and the loss continued to persist in the following years due to objective reasons.
However, according to Mr. Ha Dang Son, the financial reports for 2022, 2023 and 2024 that have been audited and published on the EVN website do not show details of the costs that constitut the losses of EVN. Therefore, if only relying on the data published on business performance in annual financial reports, it will not ensure transparency in the allocation of costs in electricity prices and will create negative public opinion for this proposal.
Therefore, the draft content needs to require EVN to report in detail the costs that constitute the loss. At the same time, only allocate reasonable expenses to the average retail electricity price, instead of accepting the allocation of all losses according to audited financial statements.
Clarifying the reason for the loss of more than VND44,000 billion
Commenting on the draft, the Ministry of Finance proposed that the Ministry of Industry and Trade direct EVN to clearly report: Regarding losses, separate losses due to social security from losses due to losses due to production and business activities, in which attention should be paid to losses due to non-sectoral investment (if any); losses (if any) due to the need to implement electricity price policies to support the implementation of state policies on the development of industries and fields; the impact of electricity price adjustment on people's lives, production and business activities of enterprises and the economy; solutions to limit the impact of electricity price adjustment.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of National Defense proposed to review, supplement and clarify the specific causes of the factors leading to the accumulated loss of VND 44,792 billion. From there, determine the accumulated losses directly related to electricity production and supply costs, report to the Government for consideration and decision.
