The Vietnam National Petroleum Corporation (Petrolimex) has received a thumbs-up from the Government to transfer to a shareholding company model with at least 75 percent of its charter capital held by the State.

According to the Government decision 828/QD-TTg on Petrolimex's equitisation and restructure plan, the corporation is renamed as the Vietnam National Petroleum Group.

The group is allowed to raise its charter capital to VND10.7 trillion (519.42 million USD) while allowed to sell 1.07 billion shares for initial public offering (IPO).

Of the total shares for IPO, around 94.99 percent, equivalent to 1.016 billion shares, is held by the State; 1.98 percent (21.172 million preferred stocks) will be offered to the group's labourers; 0.47 percent (5 million shares) will be sold for its labour union and 2.56 percent (27.425 million shares) will be auctioned via the domestic stock exchanges.

After equitising, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will act as the representative of the State capital in Petrolimex, according to the decision.

Also, the group and its subsidiaries will restructure according to the shareholding company's model, with the parent company operating as a joint stock company.

After restructuring, Petrolimex will have three corporations including petroleum transportation and services, construction and petrol and services. It will have 42 petroleum trade companies in cities and provinces and one member limited company in Singapore .

Under its labour restructuring plan, the group will have 16,502 regular labourers at the equitisation time. Of these, about 15,995 workers will be moved to the new group and 505 labourers will be let go.

Currently, Petrolimex is the leading petroleum distributor in Vietnam , occupying 60 percent of total market shares. Its sales value reaches 25 trillion VND or 80 percent of its annual total revenue.

At the moment, the corporation has a distribution system of nearly 1,500 gas stations and an agent system of 6,000 nationwide./.