PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaking at the meeting to review the ministry’s operation in the first half of 2016 on July 12 in Hanoi

 

Addressing the meeting to review the ministry’s operation in the first half of 2016, Phuc stressed that the state support policies should be changed to stop propping up weak and failing businesses.

"We’ll not bankroll bad businesses any more. We can’t keep on throwing thousands of billions of dong into projects such as the TISCO plant," Dung said.

 

In April, TISCO also asked for VND1trn (USD45m) to renovate and expand their plants while the VND8trn project teetered on the verge of bankruptcy with little chance of surviving after nine years in operation.

TISCO’s plight has received scant support from the public, as people believe such inefficient state-owned firms are asking for too much when they had already received a lot of preferential treatment, from being allocated huge land plots to preferential taxes and bank loans. 

 

It is proposed that the government should stop listening to those pleas and let the firms compete fairly. With the advantages given to state-owned firms in their early stages such as land and bank loans, they should be able to develop with such a head start.

The prime minister recently asked the minister of Industry and Trade to re-examine the project and provide proper solutions for its problems, including calling for more investment from other enterprises and even selling TISCO.