This paper presents the importance, the state of affairs and the development strategies of
the state-owned enterprises in the Fishery sector of Vietnam. The purpose is, firstly, to
review state-owned enterprise reform literature of relevance to Vietnam. Secondly, the
reform of state-owed enterprises in Vietnam particularly in the Fisheries Sector is
reviewed to determine the important issues and problems as well as the its role in the
renovation process of Vietnamese fisheries state-sector enterprises. Finally, the
opportunities, conditions, and obstacles for the reform are identified in the sector
economic development. The review of the state-owned enterprise reform in Vietnam
suggests that the diversification of ownership is one of the most important factors
affecting successes of the economic reform. There is a need for accelerating equitisation
of state-owned enterprises to have more involvement of private sectors. In the Fisheries
sector, inefficient operations of fisheries state-owned enterprises have imposed financial
burden on the national budget. Data of financial performance of fisheries enterprises
including state general corporations and equitised companies is employed to observe
changes of their profitability, operating efficiency, and leverages. Nonetheless, restricted
accessibility of records of state-owned enterprise financial performance caused some
limitations of analysis of financial and economic performances. The empirical result
shows that equitised companies have been operating much more efficiently than preequitisation.
The state capitals are being invested with higher returns and more
significantly, budgetary burden was removed. Some obstacles such as incomplete and
irrelevant regulations and lack of broad-based consensus of equitisation have accounted
for lags of the reform process. It is necessary to create a more effective policy and legal
frameworks, more incentives for actors participating in the process and more stable
macroeconomic environments