Six deputy ministers of finance will not be able to use state-owned cars while travelling from home as of October 1.

This is a move by the Vietnamese Ministry of Finance to cut the use of state-owned cars to help cut public spending.

The headquarter of the Ministry of Finance in Hanoi

Under the Finance Ministry's newly-issued decision, from October 1, six deputy ministers and heads of the ministry departments will have their taxi fares subsidised

The subsidy for the deputy ministers ranges from VND3.96 million (USD190) to VND9.9 million (USD428.5) for 22 working days per month. The money depends on the distance from the deputy minister's houses to the Ministry of Finance.

Alternatively, they can use their own cars and still receive the subsidy.

A staff member from the Ministry of Finance said to DTiNews that he supported this decision which would help to cut costs. It was quite costly to pay the contingent of ministry drivers. He hoped that this would be implemented across the rest of agencies and ministries.

According to the Department of Public Asset Management under the Ministry of Finance, roughly 40,000 state-owned cars are currently in use in the country. Each car costs an average of VND320 million (USD 13,843) in maintenance each year, adding more pressure to the state budget.

Earlier, the National Assembly Office required its officials to not to use public-owned cars, but this failed just a short time after being implemented as only few people conformed to the requirement and then they returned to using the provided cars again.