The “Cong tu Bac Lieu” of the national economy

The State economic sector has always played the decisive role in the national economy. However, it seems that there is confusion between the concept of the “state economic sector” and “state owned enterprises (SOEs)”. As the result, the national economy has witnessed the establishment of many SOEs – Cong tu Bac Lieu.

Cong tu Bac Lieu (Mandarin’s son in Bac Lieu province) was an actual personality – the son of the mandarin regarded as the richest person in the Mekong Delta. Cong tu Bac Lieu was famous for his wealth and his care free life. Cong tu Bac Lieu had his own private airplane nearly one century ago. His family sent him to France to study at a prestigious institution, but he did not receive any degrees after three years of studying. The Cong Tu Bac Lieu house, located at 13 Dien Bien Phu, Bac Lieu town, has become a famous tourist attraction (VNNB).

VNR500, the economic forum of VietNamNet, tries to record the opinions of well known businessmen, who make suggestions to the Draft Strategy on Socio-economic development for 2011-2020

Pham Thi Loan, Chair and General Director of Viet A Group: there exists the confusion between the concept of “State economic sector” and “state owned enterprises”

An objective we have set up for ourselves is that we are striving to build the country into an industrialized one by 2020.

To date, we remain an agricultural country. Therefore, I think it would be better to say “modernizing and industrializing the agriculture”. The words prove to be more suitable to our current circumstances.

Our viewpoint is that the state economic sector still plays the decisive role in the development of the national economy. However, I think there is confusion between the concepts of “state economic sector” and “state-owned enterprises”. The confusion has created the ambiguity in the management and supervision over state owned enterprises in the last time.

The state plays the leading role in the national economy, but this does not mean that state-owned enterprises plays the decisive role.

The national economy should be considered as a ship, and the state steers the ship, while enterprises are the crew. The majority of enterprises in the national economy are private run enterprises. Why don’t we consider the private economic sector as the main force in the national economy?

We are trying to persuade other countries in the world to recognize Vietnam’s economy as a market economy. Meanwhile, we always say that there is a part of enterprises which play the decisive role in the national economy.

The viewpoint has turned a lot of state-owned enterprises into “cong tu Bac Lieu”, who have a lot of assets and are always very generous in spending, but they do not make big contributions to the development of the whole country. Meanwhile, private enterprises, which do not get much support from the State, have to struggle with difficulties to survive.

Five years ago, many effective policies were issued to help develop non-state enterprises. However, it seems that these effective policies have been narrowed.

Production enterprises now have to struggle with difficulties to overcome ups and downs. A lot of enterprises have shifted to pour money into real estate, securities, while they do not focus on making investments to develop technologies and expand production. If the current situation cannot be improved, this will have a negative long-term effect on the development of the country.

Cao Tien Vi, Chair of Saigon Paper Corporation: Equal competition helps develop sustainably

As a businessman, I think that the most important thing for the next 10-year socio-economic development strategy is that we need to have reasonable and feasible visions and forecasts.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the industrialization strategy. We actually have not made a breakthrough in the process.

It seems that the biggest strength is now seen in agriculture, as most of the foreign currencies we earn come from the field.

As for industries, I think that we need to focus our support on important production fields in order to ensure the economic security, rather than giving support to many fields as we did in the last time.

National economic groups will not be able to develop strongly themselves and will need the support from the state to develop, which is something that has been done in other developed economies.

The state economic sector will still play the decisive role in some fields which act as the driving force for the development. Meanwhile, in other fields, the market should be governed by market economic laws. The equal competition will help develop the national economy in a sustainable way.

The State will receive more benefits when it creates the best conditions for all economic sectors to develop. The equality in relations will help private run businesses develop more strongly.

In order to do that, I think that it is necessary to take drastic measures to fight against corruption and follow a reasonable process towards democracy and transparency. – Vietnamnet

Tags: Vietnam companies, Vietnam enterprises, Vietnam SOEs