Economists question validity of statistics on public debt The statistics released by the Ministry of Finance and relevant agencies about Vietnam’s sovereign debt are being questioned by economists.   The State Audit Office of Vietnam (SAO) stated at a press conference last week that there were some problems in the statistical work about the public debt. Chief State Auditor Nguyen Huu Van, in his April report to the National Assembly’s Steering Committee, pointed out that the Ministry of Finance (MOF) overcounted and missed some loans and debentures. The SAO’s auditing report showed that the Vietnam’s public debt as of December 31, 2012 was VND1.632 trillion lower than that in MOF’s report. The figure of VND1.632 trillion is not big, but the gap between the statistics in the SAO and MOF reports was wide enough to make the dubious statistics seem even more unreliable. A representative of SAO admitted at the press conference that auditing public debts was a very unfamiliar work in Vietnam, and that the audit results could not be absolutely accurate because a public debt audit is just one part of the annual state budget audit program. He said that the SAO was still creating a procedure to be specifically applied to the public debt audit. In mid-July, economists present at a workshop on public debts held by the National Assembly’s Finance and State Budget Committee, warned about Vietnam’s public debts. MOF and the government have many times said that Vietnam’s public debts are still within the safety line. A report from MOF showed that as of December 31, 2013, Vietnam’s public debt had been at VND1.913 trillion, or 53.4 percent of GDP, and the government’s debts at VND1.488 trillion, or 41.5 percent of GDP. Meanwhile, the “safety lines” are 65 percent of GDP and 55 percent of GDP, respectively. However, the economists at the workshop pointed out that the figures do not truly reflect the public debt situation because MOF did not count other kinds of loans, including state-owned enterprises’ debts. Dr. Vu Dinh Anh from the Finance Academy noted that the figures about the public debt value, foreign and government debt, and debt growth have not been made public annually. Anh cited The Global Debt Clock (GDC) as reporting that as of the end of March 2014, every Vietnamese had borne a debt of VND20 million ($887.51). GDC showed that Vietnam’s public debts have been increasing. In the period from January 2013 to March 2014, Vietnam’s public debts increased by $9.887 billion, which means a monthly total increase of $700 million and $100 per head increase. Dr. Trinh Tien Dung, former assistant to the UNDP Vietnam Country Director, gave two different figures about Vietnam’s public debts. Public debts, if calculated in accordance with the Public Debt Management Law, account for 54.4 percent of Vietnam’s GDP. Under the law, public debts comprise government debts, government-guaranteed debts and local authorities’ debts. However, if Vietnam’s public debt was calculated in accordance with international accounting practice, the figure would be 106 percent of GDP. TBKTVN