Over $486 million from State budget used on state-owned cars Some 34,214 State-owned cars cost the State budget more than 486 million USD per year, according to Tran Duc Thang, Director of the Department of Public Asset Management under the Ministry of Finance.   At a news conference on revising policies on State-owned cars held in Hanoi on March 8, Thang said the cost of running a car, including hiring chauffeurs, maintenance and repair, is about 320 million VND (14,400 USD) per year.  In 2016 the MoF sold 1,105 redundant cars for an average price of 46.2 million VND (2,070 USD) per vehicle. Assessing the implementation of Decision 32/2015/QD-TTg on State-owned cars, Thang said the existing State-owned car management policy had positive points like determining the number of cars allowed by each agency, organisation and unit, and the number of redundant cars to adjust the use of State-owned cars. The policy also helps reduce the number of jointly-used vehicles, sell redundant cars or transfer them to agencies in need. However, the decision implementation faces problems like the increase of individual-use cars and lack of regulations on commuting allowances for some positions. The MoF created a plan to allocate commuting allowances to some positions and to reduce the number of State-owned cars from 30 to 50 percent in ministries, sectors and localities, except for those operating in sea and islands as well as mountainous and extremely disadvantaged areas. According to a draft decision replacing Decision 32/2015/QD-TTg, the MoF put a price cap on buying State-owned cars. A car for the head of a government agency has the maximum price of 1.1 billion VND (49,000 USD), a car for deputy ministers not more than 920 million VND (41,000 USD) and a jointly-used car no more than 720 million VND (32,300 USD). The decision also proposes solutions of commuting allowances, including a one-time allocation of 6.5 million VND (291 USD) per month or 16,000 VND per kilometer (0.72 USD). The MoF plans to submit the policy on commuting allowances to the Prime Minister for approval in the second quarter of this year. VNA