Key economic regions have contributed significantly to national economy and have served as divers of growth as every 1% growth of these four key economic regions would push GDP up by 0.61%.
Particularly, the gross regional development product (GRDP) of the Northern and Southern Key Economic Regions accounted for more than 61% of the country’s GDP during the 2011-2019 period, establishing themselves as “the key of the key economic regions.” Of the figure, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City respectively made up 13.08% and 19.9% of the country’s GDP during the review period.
However, the key economic regions have not yet fully promoted their potentials and advantages. A number of shortcomings have still remained, including economic slowdown, a lack of efficiency in coordination mechanisms among regions, poor regional linkage of industries, as well as a shortage of human resources.
In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has also posed significantly impacts on the development of the regions’ major indicators, including economic growth, and budget collection.
At a recent meeting of permanent Government members to discuss the development of key economic regions, participants paid special attention to investment attraction in projects which can promote regional connections, including those in the fields of transport infrastructure, tourism, logistics, prevention of drought and saltwater intrusion, and climate change adaptation.
Some of the delegates voiced the need to build a law on regulating the development of key economic regions, which can thoroughly remove existing difficulties and challenges facing the regions, and clarify the role of the regions’ councils, and regulate the mobilisation and allocation of resources.
At the meeting, the Prime Minister mapped out major solutions to maximise potentials of key economic regions, including promptly completing regional and provincial master plans.
Recently, the Government promulgated Resolution 128/NQ-CP on tasks and solutions to strengthen the development of key economic regions. The resolution was enacted at a time when the Government has mobilised all available resources to facilitate the country’s growth against the complicated developments of COVID-19.
Accordingly, the Government asked localities in key economic regions to exert every effort to overcome the difficulties, maximise their potential and promote innovation in order to create breakthrough developments to contribute to the country’s development.
The localities were also requested to improve the legal environment and the regional coordination mechanism and complete the regional and national planning for 2021-2030 period with a vision to 2050 in order to ensure a long-term vision, promote potential and competitive advantages and enhance regional linkages.
