PM wants US$3 billion in unpaid taxes collected by year-end

The order came as the government is expected to fall short of its revenue target by at least VND31.3 trillion (US$1.36 billion), due to a sharp decline in crude oil prices.

In the past few months, government agencies often publicly slammed local businesses for failing to pay taxes, blaming them for the state budget's problems.

Since July, tax offices around the country have released the names of their top tax defaulters, mostly businesses, to shame them into making payments.

Figures released by the General Department of Taxation this week showed that the name-and-shame policy has helped fetch about 17.9% of VND11.72 trillion (US$512.76 million) owed by 563 top defaulters.

At a press conference on the same day, government spokesman Nguyen Van Nen addressed concerns about its recent report that showed total ddeebts of 93 biggest state-owned enterprises (SOEs) expanded 8% to VND1,567 trillion (US$68.43 billion) last year.

Nen said the companies' debts were 1.41 times higher than their equity, so they were still within the safe debt-to-equity ratio of 3.

The businesses have almost never missed their payment deadlines, he said.

The spokesman also assured that the Vietnamese government has been applying strict discipline when guaranteeing SOEs' loans.

Nen said the government guarantee SOEs' foreign loans as they are tasked with major projects, but local resources still fall short of the funding demand.

Moreover, Nen said, with the government's guarantee, the businesses' debt servicing costs are lower than when they take out loans on their own.

SOEs' debts guaranteed by the government accounted for 19% of the country's public debt, and was equivalent to 11.4% of gross domestic product, he said.

Vietnam's public debt is expected to reach 61.3% of gross domestic product at the end of December, while foreign debt is set to hit at 41.5%.