Increase capital, innovate governance to unlock resources
Sharing from the practice of Vietnam Expressway Corporation (VEC), Mr. Tran Cong Hoa - Member of VEC's Member Council - shared that the enterprise identifies three pillars in restructuring including financial restructuring with a focus on strengthening equity capacity; innovating corporate governance through perfecting regulations, processes, organizational structure and personnel arrangement; along with restructuring operations and the market to create sustainable development momentum.
VEC's biggest turning point is the increase in charter capital. According to Mr. Hoa, strengthening financial capacity has helped businesses have conditions to mobilize more social resources to invest in large-scale projects. Currently, VEC is implementing many key projects such as expanding the Cau Gie - Ninh Binh route, Ho Chi Minh City - Long Thanh - Dau Giay, Noi Bai - Lao Cai and investing in the Hanoi Ring Road 4. From that reality, Mr. Hoa believes that when restructuring is implemented in the right direction, especially removing bottlenecks in financial resources, businesses will have conditions to promote operational efficiency and make positive contributions to socio-economic development.
On the side of the unit implementing capital investment and business, Mr. Vu Tri Thuc - Deputy General Director of the State Capital Investment Corporation (SCIC) said that the restructuring, divestment and equitization work in the past time has generally been implemented smoothly thanks to a relatively complete system of mechanisms and policies. However, the implementation process still has difficulties that need to be further removed. Mr. Thuc said that improving management efficiency and capital restructuring needs to be assigned to professional and specialized organizations. The reality of divestment at thousands of enterprises shows that this process requires in-depth expertise, experience and flexibility; many cases require valuation and auctions many times, combining methods to achieve results.
The determination of enterprise value must fully calculate the actual value, including land use rights, and at the same time hire an independent appraisal unit and publicly auction. The process usually takes 3-6 months, while the market fluctuates rapidly, causing auction results to be not as expected. Therefore, it is necessary to grant more rights to specialized organizations in investment and capital business to accelerate the arrangement and innovation of SOEs.
Improving the investment capacity of state-owned enterprises
Meanwhile, Dr. Vo Tri Thanh - Director of the Institute for Brand and Competitiveness Strategy Research - said that it is necessary to change the way SOEs are evaluated according to new development goals, not just based on traditional indicators such as profit, competition or business efficiency.
He also emphasized that restructuring is not only divestment, equitization or capital sale, but also to increase capital, improve the quality of human resources, management capacity and international competitiveness. Along with that is empowering businesses in parallel with appropriate supervision mechanisms, allowing the application of modern risk management tools and gradually improving SCIC's professional investment capacity in the future. Dr. Vo Tri Thanh said that if the goal is to maximize revenue, the approach will be different from the case of needing to maintain the industry or brand. According to him, the most important thing is to ensure transparency for the market to accept.
