As many as 195 SOEs needed to be equitised by the end of the year. — Photo taichinhplus.vn

HA NOI – As of September 94 out of a targeted 289 State-owned companies had been equitised this year, leaving 195 more to make IPOs to achieve the goal, the finance ministry said.

The equitisation process has been slow because investors demand more transparency, deputy director of the ministry's Corporate Finance Agency, Dang Quyet Tien, told the media last week.

Besides, the companies' executives anticipated losing power and worried that new shortcomings might be discovered during the process, he said.

Only VND4.5 trillion (US$200 million) has been raised from the disinvestment, and nearly VND18 trillion ($803 million) worth of shares still need to be sold this year, including VND10 trillion ($446 million) in banking and VND6 trillion ($267 million) in housing, he said.

To speed up the task, he suggested publishing details of the progress made by each firm seeking to equitise, and improving monitoring and inspections.

The results of the equitisation efforts also need to be included to evaluate the work of companies' boards.

In February 2014, at a meeting with State-owned companies, ministries and others, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung had set the goal of equitising 432 SOEs in 2014 and 2015.

A total of 143 SOEs were equitised in 2014. — VNS