Facilitating the Resolution of Obstacles and Promoting the Equitization of State-Owned Enterprises
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According to the Ministry of Finance, regarding the conditions for arranging land and housing before the equitization of enterprises: According to Clause 4, Article 1 of Decree No. 126/2017/ND-CP (amended and supplemented at Point a, Clause 2, Article 1 of Decree No. 140/2020/ND-CP), one of the conditions for enterprise equitization is to have an approved plan for rearranging and handling houses and land by the competent authority in accordance with the law on state asset management. Based on the plan for rearranging and handling houses and land in accordance with the law on state asset management, state-owned enterprises shall establish a plan for land use until the time of enterprise valuation and report it to the representative agency of the owner to seek opinions from the provincial People’s Committees before approving the plan for land use upon equitization.
However, the main reason for the slow progress of equitization in the past was due to some enterprises not complying with the law on rearrangement (not declaring or delaying declaration, reporting, synthesizing, and developing a rearrangement plan for approval by the competent authority) despite the fact that the regulations on rearranging and handling houses and land have been in place for over 20 years; some localities delayed processing or failed to provide opinions when the Ministry of Finance requested them on the rearrangement plan, resulting in the inability to approve it; many enterprises only conducted the declaration and reporting for rearranging houses and land shortly before equitization, with the volume ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand houses and land lots located nationwide, leading to the inability to complete the rearrangement within a short period, thus affecting the progress of equitization. In addition, the management of houses and land by enterprises was not strict, leading to situations where they were not used in accordance with regulations (arranged for living or left vacant…); some cases lacked legal documents or had lost them, creating difficulties in rearranging and handling them.
Along with that, in the supervision report, the National Assembly’s Economic Committee proposed to “separate the rearrangement and handling of houses and land from the equitization process of state-owned enterprises because inspecting the current status of houses and land is a regular task before, during, and after the equitization of state management agencies in accordance with the law on land to ensure the right use and effective use of land to avoid waste and waste, not just for the purpose of implementing the equitization of state-owned enterprises.”
Therefore, to speed up the progress of equitization, the Ministry of Finance proposes to maintain the regulation on the condition that enterprises must have an approved plan for rearranging and handling houses and land by the competent authority in Clause 4, Article 1 of Decree No. 126/2017/ND-CP (amended and supplemented at Point a, Clause 2, Article 1 of Decree No. 140/2020/ND-CP). However, some exclusion cases should be added as follows:
For enterprises subject to rearranging and handling houses and land in accordance with the law on state asset management, there must be a plan for rearranging and handling houses and land within the scope of rearranging and handling houses and land that has been approved by the competent authority in accordance with the law on state asset management, except for some houses and land (not including land areas allocated for building houses for sale and developing infrastructure for transfer or lease) that have not completed the rearrangement and handling falling into one of the following cases:
– Houses and land with unclear origins and legal documents;
– Houses and land with complex historical changes in terms of name, merger, split, and transfer between units;
– Houses and land with lost legal documents;
– Other objective cases affecting the progress of enterprise equitization that have been approved by the competent authority;
Equitized enterprises are responsible for identifying houses and land falling into the above cases and reporting them to the representative agency of the owner, the agency assigned with the task of deciding on equitization, while still having to continue implementing the plan for rearranging and handling houses and land in accordance with the law on state asset management and land law. Equitized enterprises must explain and provide information to investors in the equitization plan and when conducting the initial public offering of enterprise shares to investors. Enterprises during and after the equitization process must continue to implement the plan for rearranging and handling these houses and land in accordance with the law on state asset management and land law.
For agricultural and forestry companies wholly owned by the State, in addition to the plan for rearranging and handling houses and land for non-agricultural land areas that has been approved by the competent authority in accordance with the law on state asset management, there must be a plan for the use of agricultural land that has been approved by the competent authority in accordance with Decree No. 118/2014/ND-CP dated December 17, 2014, of the Government on rearranging, renewing, and developing agricultural and forestry companies, along with other amended and supplemented documents.
Facilitating the Equitization Process
Regarding the impact assessment of the above-proposed regulations, the Ministry of Finance has the following opinions:
Decree No. 167/2017/ND-CP and Decree No. 67/2021/ND-CP detail the scope, subjects, and responsibilities of ministries, sectors, localities, parent companies, and direct managers of houses and land in rearranging and handling houses and land. Therefore, for houses and land of enterprises within the scope and subjects of application of Decree No. 167/2017/ND-CP and Decree No. 67/2021/ND-CP, rearrangement and handling must be carried out in accordance with the law on state asset management. This is a regular and continuous task (before, during, and after the equitization process of state-owned enterprises) to manage and use houses and land in accordance with regulations, ensuring proper use and avoiding waste of national resources, not just for the purpose of state-owned enterprise equitization.
The above amendment proposal in the draft resolution aims to facilitate the equitization process when enterprises encounter difficulties and obstacles in approving the plan for rearranging and handling houses and land, while still ensuring that the responsibility for approving the plan for rearranging and handling houses and land of the representative agency of the owner/Board of Directors/Chairman of the company must be completed in accordance with the law on state asset management and publicly announced to investors when initially offering shares to the public, ensuring transparency and clarity. Therefore, the above proposal ensures that equitized enterprises comply with the law on land, the law on state asset management, and the law on equitization.
