Vinacomin hikes coal prices
The Vietnam National Coal, Mineral
Industries Holding Corporation Limited (Vinacomin) has raised coal
prices for products delivered to Electricity of Vietnam (EVN)
thermo-electric plants.
Effective from March 1, the prices
of two regular types of coal were hiked by 5 percent, with coal dust
No4 rising to 648,400 VND (31 USD) per tonne and reaching 520,000 VND
(25 USD) per tonne of coal dust No 5.
Prices for two new
products, coal dust No6a and No6b, were set at 450,000 VND (21.7 USD)
and VND 395,000 (19 USD) per tonne, respectively, not including Value
Added Tax.
Deputy General Director of Vinacomin Nguyen Van
Hai said the hike was calculated based on an agreement between
Vinacomin and EVN under the guidelines of Circular 05/2011 TT-BCT on
electricity prices issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade last
month.
The price increase followed the market mechanism which
allows Vinacomin to cut losses, Hai said. However, it would only offset
around 63 percent to 68 percent of the current product costs.
He also revealed that Vinacomin was planning to hike coal prices to
other industries including cement, fertiliser and paper with a minimum
increase of 9 percent of export product prices.
This year, the group aims to sell 44 million tonnes of coal products including 27.5 million tonnes to the domestic market.
Vinacomin aims to continue to boost capacity by investing in its existing coal mines.
In another move, the group has recently submitted a report to the Prime
Minister on its decision to discontinue contributing capital to
enterprises operating in the finance, banking, securities, insurance and
real estate sectors.
Hai said that his corporation now
aims at specialising in coal, electricity, minerals, coal mining
equipment and chemicals industries only.
Specifically,
Vinacomin will not follow through on its contributions to any businesses
that it has made a promise for committed or registered capital.
The corporation plans to withdraw funds from companies to which it has
already contributed capital at an appropriate time to ensure the
businesses have secured alternative capital.
Currently,
Vinacomin has 66 subsidiaries including 22 limited liabilities
companies, 35 joint stock companies, 4 foreign companies and 5
administrative units. Up to now, it has invested in several projects in
finance, banking, securities, insurance and real estate.
From 2011 onwards, the group will continue to equitise some limited
liability companies that fall outside the coal mining sector and reduce
its number of controlling shares in several subsidiaries operating in
sectors such as trade, tourism and information technology in order to
recover capital to, in turn, invest in coal mining and processing
projects./.