Ho Chi Minh City will accelerate State-owned enterprise (SOEs) divestments in non-core businesses in 2015, said Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Le Manh Ha on March 23.

At a working session with the city’s National Assembly deputies, Ha acknowledged that the city has focused solely on SOE equitisation while lacking sufficient attention towards divestment.

As of February 28 of this year, 10 of 14 State-owned corporations and parent-subsidiary companies in HCM City divested more than 577 billion VND (27.47 million USD) from 43 businesses, representing only 16 percent of the targets for 2013-2015.

The city is scheduled to divest more than 3.6 trillion VND (1.71 billion USD) from non-core businesses in 2015.

Huynh Trung Lam, Deputy Head of the city’s business management renovation board, attributed the sluggish divestment to economic hardships limiting the number of partners interested in buying shares.

The large volume of shares offered by other firms in a condensed period of time also affected SOE divestment plans. It took time to follow the divestment process set by the Prime Minister’s Decision No.51 dated September 15, 2014, he added.

The municipal People’s Committee has adjusted its plan to focus on steering SOE divestment this year, Lam noted.

Divesting non-core assets is among efforts to restructure SOEs as part of the economic restructuring scheme stated in the National Assembly’s Resolution No.10/2011/QH13 on the socio-economic development plan for 2011-2015. Public investment and the banking system are also undergoing restructuring.-VNA