Minister of Construction's move on Vicem's continuous losses

At the recent working session of the Ministry of Construction with Vicem, Minister of Construction Tran Hong Minh requested the Board of Members and Executive Board of Vicem to immediately innovate leadership, direction, and operation methods, improve management and corporate governance efficiency, strongly apply scientific and technological advances, immediately review all input stages, and reduce unnecessary departments and procedures to maximize savings on unnecessary costs.

The Minister of Construction requested Vicem to review and adjust the 2025 production and business plan of the entire corporation. Mr. Minh assigned Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen Viet Hung to direct and immediately remove difficulties and obstacles of enterprises.

Vicem has lost thousands of billions of dong for two consecutive years.

Vicem is a 45-year-old enterprise under the Ministry of Construction. Vicem manages 10 factories nationwide with 16 production lines, a capacity of 20 million tons of clinker and 27 million tons of cement per year. The ecosystem is famous for cement brands such as Ha Tien, Hai Phong, Bim Son, Hoang Thach, But Son, Hoang Mai...

This is also the only unit among the 6 enterprises under the Ministry of Construction (before the merger) to operate at a loss in 2024. Specifically, Vicem's parent company's profit was negative by more than VND 236 billion and its consolidated loss was VND 1,400 billion due to the poor market. However, this dismal result is still lower than Vicem's loss plan of VND 59.6 billion and VND 177.5 billion, respectively.

2024 is the second consecutive year of losses for the "giant" of the Vietnamese cement industry. Last year, Vicem recorded negative profits for the first time, about VND1,129 billion, due to a sharp drop in demand since it announced the information in 2016. By the end of 2023, the company's accumulated losses were about VND2,240 billion.

Mr. Nguyen Quoc Viet - Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vicem said that 2024 is an extremely difficult year for the construction materials industry in general and cement production in particular. Cement supply far exceeds demand. Cement prices tend to continue to decrease while raw material and fuel input prices for production remain high.

Faced with that situation, in 2024, Vicem has implemented synchronous solutions in production and business activities. Regarding solutions to implement the production and business plan in 2025 and the coming period, Vicem will continue to focus on implementing the solutions implemented in 2024, but with a more drastic, comprehensive, timely and in-depth spirit.

Previously, in early March, the Department of Police Investigation of Crimes of Corruption, Economy, and Smuggling decided to prosecute four defendants, former leaders and officials of Vicem, for the crime of "Violating regulations on management and use of State assets, causing loss and waste".

Former Vicem leaders caught up in the law include: Le Van Chung, former Chairman of the Board of Members; Nguyen Ngoc Anh, former General Director; Du Ngoc Long, former Director of the Project Management Board; Hoang Ngoc Hieu, former Head of the Appraisal Department.

Of these, three people were temporarily detained, while former General Director Nguyen Ngoc Anh was released on bail.

(Source: Tien Phong)

Link: https://tienphong.vn/dong-thai-cua-bo-truong-xay-dung-ve-viec-vicem-thua-lo-trien-mien-post1727466.tpo?fbclid=Iw Y2xjawJM6CZleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHWETgIpw7VZEdR54kv76o1L0YoyYFddaRy3_3oT4KrREOO_2P06WBEI2Qw_aem_ljO1a0Iat94tT_UWmoQSSg