Trần Đức Thắng, director general of the Public Asset Management Department under the Ministry of Finance, spoke to the Vietnam News Agency about the limitations of utilising public assets.— Photo thoibaotaichinhvietnam.vn/

Trần Đức Thắng, director general of the Public Asset Management Department under the Ministry of Finance, spoke to the Vietnam News Agency about the limitations of utilising public assets

The lack of unified data

Due to the lack of an effective mechanism and unified data system, it is very difficult for the Public Asset Management Department under the Ministry of Finance to manage and utilise public assets for the benefit of the country.

The term “public asset management” covers buildings, land, cars or anything worth more than VNĐ500 million (US$23,500).

According to the national data, as of December 31, 2015, Việt Nam’s public assets were worth about US$47 billion. Of the total amount, the value of the land use rights is about $31.8 billion.

Many public land plots are located in prime real estate areas and have greatly contributed to the national economic development and social security, but many of them are inefficiently or under utilised.

Although decisions to sell or transfer lots of land or buildings have been issued, these properties can’t be utilised without detailed planning and a lack of responsibility among relevant agencies.

There is still tardiness in determining property’s value before transferring properties to new units in charge so that the properties can be used. Currently we have been able to transfer assets of VND21 trillion (US$9 billion) to units in charge.

In my opinion, if we have a good management mechanism in place, I’m pretty sure that the value of prime real estate will increase far more than the current $31.8 billion as written in the national data.

Proper management of public assets

Another thing I want to mention is the poor implementation of Party and State policies on the “socialisation” of education and training, health care, culture and society.

If these policies are properly carried out, we would be able to mobilise various resources in order to improve our education and training, health care, culture and society.

Last but not least, our compensation policy on land clearance has not been on par with that of the budget collection or spending in public projects.

A case in point I want to mention here is the nearly eight million hectares of land allocated to public farms and forestry enterprises nationwide. Most of these pieces of land have been left fallow or used inefficiently. Meanwhile, many people don’t have land for production and have to lease land from others.

It is high time the Government work out measures to generate more revenue from public assets to serve the national course of socio-economic development. — VNS