Land makes up 68 percent of total state assets The total assets of the state in the national database by December 31, 2015 were valued at VND1,031,313.82 billion.   The figure was updated in the latest government’s report on the management and use of the state’s assets. Of this, the land use right is valued at VND700,574.99 billion, houses VND254.032.19 billion, and cars VND22.887.73 billion, while the other assets with original value of VND500 million and higher for each had the value of VND53.818.91 billion. The total land area managed and used by agencies, organizations and project management units by December 31, 2015 had reached 2,565.79 million square meters, worth VND700,574.99 billion, accounting for 67.93 percent of the total assets of the state. As for house assets, in 2015, the newly built and received houses helped increase the house area by 1.35 million square meters worth VND7,748.86 billion, while the house transfer led to a decrease of 0.32 million square meters with original value of VND633.11 billion.  MPI is considering setting up a committee in charge of managing and supervising the use of the state’s capital at enterprises. The total house fund managed and used by agencies, organizations and project management units by December 31, 2015 had reached 129.22 million square meters with the original value in books of VND254,032.19 billion, accounting for 24.63 percent of the total assets of the state. Experts pointed out that the state’s assets were lost during the state-owned enterprise equitization process. This is attributed to the undervaluing of land assets. In an article published in May 2016 on Dien Dan Doanh Nghiep newspaper, Dang Hung Vo, former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, the leading land expert in Vietnam, pointed out the complexity of the current laws on assessing land in equitization. According to Vo, nine government decrees on state-owned enterprise equitization were issued in the last 20 years. Meanwhile, there exist considerable differences in the regulations on land valuation stipulated in legal documents on land management and legal documents on state-owned enterprise equitization. The differences in the two legal systems related to the assessment of land value in equitization have been fixed. The land value taken into consideration when equitizing enterprises does not include the land enterprises lease from the state. Meanwhile, the business advantage brought by land positions will not be considered when calculating the leased land value. However, a legal loophole exists there. In economic laws, the positions of land plots are the most important factor which determined the value of the land. In related news, MPI is considering setting up a committee in charge of managing and supervising the use of the state’s capital at enterprises. According to CafeF, the total assets to be put under the committee’s control is valued at VND2,200 trillion, or $100 billion. VND22,000=US$1 Dat Viet