The assessment report on the implementation results of the annual production and business plan and the last 3 years (2015, 2016 and 2017) recently published by the Vietnam Education Publishing House (NXBGD) shows that the unit's salary fund has continuously increased over the past 3 years.

Specifically, the total salary fund paid in 2015 was 59.3 billion VND for 292 employees, each employee received an average of 16.9 million VND/month. In 2016, the total salary fund of the Publishing House increased to 71.8 billion VND. The salary fund increased sharply but the number of employees decreased to 285 people.

Therefore, on average, each worker here receives 21 million VND/month. By 2017, the total salary fund increased to 78 billion VND, the number of workers continued to decrease to 257 people, each worker received an average of 25.3 million VND. This salary is many times higher than the average income of employees in public service units, even higher than the average income of employees in some "hot" industries today such as banking.

Similarly, the salaries of NXBGD leaders have also continuously increased and remained high. For example, in 2015, the salary fund for management positions was only 4.5 billion VND, but in 2016 it increased sharply to 6.2 billion VND and in 2017 it increased to 6.8 billion VND.

With 5 members of the Board of Directors, 6 members of the Board of General Directors, 1 chief accountant and 1 controller, the total number of leaders of NXBGD is 13 people. In 2017 alone, each member of the management board received an average of more than 523 million VND/year, equivalent to 43.6 million VND/month.

To be able to pay such high salaries, in the past 3 years, most of the business performance indicators of NXBGD have been very "beautiful" with total revenue continuously increasing from 1,041 billion VND in 2015 to 1,147 billion VND in 2016 and 1,203 billion VND in 2017.

Although the output of textbooks has ups and downs (in 2016 it increased sharply, in 2017 it decreased slightly), revenue has increased steadily and steadily over the years. The most notable is the profit target. If in 2015, the pre-tax profit of the Education Publishing House was only 32 billion VND, in 2016 it increased more than 2 times to 72.1 billion VND and in 2017 it continued to increase more than 2 times to 150.8 billion VND.

Among the companies that NXBGD invested in, only 2 units made a loss in 2014. By 2017, all of these education companies were profitable, the largest being Ho Chi Minh City Book and School Equipment Joint Stock Company with 13.8 billion VND in profit. Every year, NXBGD receives dividends from these companies from 10-20%. In particular, Quang Tri Book and School Equipment Printing and Distribution Joint Stock Company has reported 0% dividends for 4 consecutive years, even though it had profitable business in 2016 and 2017.

Although the main business segment of textbooks causes losses of tens of billions of VND each year, the income of leaders and employees of Vietnam Education Publishing House still increases steadily (In photo: Booth of Vietnam Education Publishing House at the 2018 Autumn Book Fair)

Where does profit come from?

The business lines of the Education Publishing House include printing, educational support services, publishing of publications such as textbooks, teaching materials, books, documents, etc. According to the Information Disclosure Report sent to the Ministry of Education and Training, in 2016, the Education Publishing House published more than 101 million copies, in 2016 nearly 109 million, in 2017 more than 107 million and in 2018 110 million copies. Textbooks account for 60% of revenue and cause losses of tens of billions of VND/year due to increases in raw materials, fuel, labor, printing and transportation costs. Specifically, in 2015, this sector lost 43.8 billion VND, in 2016 it lost 43.3 billion VND and in 2017 it lost 38.14 billion VND.

Despite losses in the core business, profits still increased sharply and faster than revenue growth.

Explaining this “victory”, the leader of the Publishing House said: “In addition to implementing solutions to improve labor productivity and increase capital efficiency, this unit also achieved exceptionally high profits thanks to divestment activities. According to the Publishing House’s report, the profit in 2017 from business activities and service provision was 240.9 billion VND, from net revenue of more than 1,111 billion VND. The items that brought in revenue and profit include exercise books, reference books, textbooks, dictionaries, etc.

Notably, according to the Project on restructuring the Education Publishing House for the period 2014-2016, with a vision to 2020 approved by the Ministry of Education and Training, in 2015 the Education Publishing House divested all its investment capital in a company, earning 1.1 billion VND.

Then, in 2016, NXBGD continued to divest all its capital in 2 companies, earning 14.97 billion VND. In 2017, NXBGD continued to divest all its capital in 2 more companies, earning 32.18 billion VND. It is known that in 2018, NXBGD continued to divest capital in joint stock companies when the Restructuring Project for the period 2018 - 2023 was approved by the Ministry of Education and Training. As of June 20, 2018, NXBGD had 10 subsidiaries holding over 50% of charter capital and investing in 11 other companies with capital accounting for over 50% of charter capital.