Petro folly

摘要

The government of Vietnam, although nominally communist, has warmed towards free enterprise. Like its counterpart in China, it has legalised private firms, courted foreign investment and even admitted businessmen to the Communist Party. But as much as it welcomes the jobs and tax revenues that private businesses bring, it cannot seem to wean itself off a ruinous addiction to inefficient state-owned firms. Businessmen complain that giant public firms still hoover up and squander the lion's share of loans, depriving better-run companies of capital needed to grow. On that score, one of the biggest offenders must surely be PetroVietnam, a state-owned oil firm which is moving into refining in a big, expensive and hare-brained way. Petro Vietnam is already building a refinery at Dung Quat, on the central coast, at a projected cost of $1.3 billion, and wants to build another, in Thanh Hoa province, a little further north, for $2.5 billion.