Despite the complicated development of COVID-19 epidemic, under the leadership of the Provincial Party Committee, the close administration of the Provincial People's Committee, the effort of all levels and branches of authority, enterprises and people, Ha Nam province is concentrating all resources to accomplish its goals and targets. Vietnam Business Forum’s reporter has an interview with Mr. Nguyen Xuan Dong, Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee of Ha Nam province, on this issue. Ha Thanh reports.
How has the COVID-19 epidemic affected goals and targets set by the province as well as the progress of public investment disbursement in Ha Nam province in 2020?
Due to COVID-19 impacts, local enterprises faced substantial difficulty in production and business activities and the province failed to achieve targeted socioeconomic indicators in the first six months of 2020 because of low growth, budget revenue, export value and tourism revenue.
Before this reality, to fulfill socioeconomic development goals and targets, Ha Nam province has focused on implementing many urgent and breakthrough solutions as follows:
- Issuing action plans to carry out the Prime Minister’s Directive 11/CT-TTg dated March 4, 2020, on urgent tasks and solutions to assist enterprises to deal with emerging hardships, ensure social security and respond to the COVID-19 epidemic.
- Focus on carrying out five resolutions (04, 05, 06, 07 and 08) of the Provincial Party Committee on local socioeconomic development.
- Mobilizing resources and integrating target programs to promote the National Target Program for New Countryside Construction; accelerating the implementation of solutions to business development, income improvement and livelihood improvement of local people.
Besides, right from the beginning of the year, the Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial People’s Committee of Ha Nam concentrated on directing all levels and branches of authority and investors to execute and fund public investment projects as planned in 2020. After having the Government’s Resolution 84/NQ-CP dated May 29, 2020, on tasks and solutions to solve production and business difficulties, speed up public investment disbursement and ensure social order and safety amid the COVID-19 epidemic, the Provincial People's Committee set up a steering committee to promote public investment capital disbursement and carry out investment projects. The steering committee has closely followed large projects and troubled projects to help investors to urgently complete investment procedures and speed up project progress. It has reviewed and transferred investment funds to projects that failed to disburse 60% of the planned fund as of September 30, 2020. Therefore, Ha Nam province ranked Top 10 in the nation by disbursement rate in the first six months of 2020.
How has Ha Nam province improved the business investment environment, PCI, PAPI, and PAR indices?
According to performance results of the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), Public Administration Reform Index (PAR Index) and Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) announced by central agencies in 2019, Ha Nam's PCI Index reached 65.07 points, ranked No. 34 out of 63 provinces and cities to secure a well-ranked position in the country (4 places higher than in 2018); the PAR Index was 79.91 points, ranked No. 45; and the PAPI Index was 45.46 points, ranked No. 9 (29 places higher than in 2018).
To further improve the business investment environment, enhance competitiveness, support business development, and raise PCI, PAPI and PAR indices in 2020 and beyond, the Provincial People’s Committee has directed departments, branches and localities to carry out the following main solutions:
1- Direction and administration: Effectively carrying out Public Administration Reform Plan in 2016-2020 as per the Prime Minister's Decision 225/QD-TTg dated February 4, 2016, the guidance of the Steering Committee for Administration Reform on Ha Nam Public Administration Reform to form an enabling and serving government; drastically and effectively implementing tasks concerning reforming administrative procedures and improving the business investment environment; enhancing public governance and administration to make clear changes in 2020 and beyond in the province's PCI, PAPI and PAR indices (scores and rankings); defining public administration reform as a regular focus of each agency, locality and unit; assigning heads of administrative agencies at all levels to be liable to the Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee for content, composition criteria, scores and rankings of the above-mentioned indicators; and annually reviewing PCI, PAPI and PAR results, and proposing solutions to immediately improve underperforming contents and criteria.
2. Personnel improvement: Fully complying with regulations and guidance of the Government, ministries and central branches on personnel organization and apparatus; consolidating functions and tasks of provincial and district professional agencies in a streamlined and effective manner; arranging personnel the Ha Nam Public Administration Center and public relations divisions at district and commune levels. Public employees in charge of providing administrative procedures for organizations and individuals must have standard qualifications, competencies, ethical qualities, expertise and communication skills.
3- Administrative procedures reform: Fully and effectively implementing six tasks specified in the Master Program for Public Administrative Reform in 2011-2020; implementing administrative procedure reform tasks and improving the province's PCI, PAPI, and PAR performances, especially in areas that directly and frequently affect the operations of investors and enterprises.
Reviewing and reducing the time for administrative complaint settlement in general and especially administrative procedures concerning business, investment, construction, land and tax and interconnecting settlement of administrative complaints, creating fundamental changes in settlement of administrative procedures in order to enhance the business investment climate and provincial competitiveness.
4- Accelerated information technology application for better performance and transparency of administrative agencies: Boosting information technology application to raise public and transparent operations and performance of administrative agencies, minimizing negative acts and harassment caused by public employees; and regularly informing, guiding and encouraging people and businesses to apply IT to solve administrative complaints, increasing the rate of administrative procedures of Level 3 and Level 4 settled online.
The transparency of administrative services provided by agencies, units and localities, especially those serving people and businesses, is ensured on the provincial information portal and websites run by administrative agencies; maintaining and improving the quality of dialogues between authorities, businesses and people to quickly receive and handle emerging problems faced by local enterprises and people; thoroughly addressing overlapping activities, strictly complying with mandatory inspection and examination into enterprises as per the Prime Minister's Directive 20/CT-TTg on business inspection.
5- Improving the quality of public service and administrative service delivery: Administrative agencies from provincial to grassroots levels focus on improving service quality of handling administrative procedures for organizations and individuals. Any cases relating to delayed service must be explained and provided written apologies.
Strengthening communications on health insurance policies to increase policyholders of voluntary health insurance; improving the quality of education; improving basic infrastructure to ensure the provision of essential services.
To promote its role as the southern gateway of Hanoi that links the southern Red River Delta with the northern key economic region and foster effective regional cooperation, what economic sectors will Ha Nam focus priority on?
To achieve these goals, Ha Nam needs to focus on and give priority to industries, trade and services below:
- Further promoting agricultural industrialization, developing hi-tech agriculture in association with environmental protection, building product brands, and strengthening cooperation in production and consumption; preventing and fighting natural disasters and epidemics; building a new and sustainable countryside.
- Concentrating on developing supporting, processing and manufacturing industries; attracting modern and effective technology projects to create a driving force for rapid and sustainable growth.
- Boosting the development of trade and services, focusing on high-quality healthcare, education, modern trade, logistics and tourism services, achieved good outcomes in economic restructuring.
Source: Vietnam Business Forum
Vietnamese
October 2024
Hanoi