Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has requested ministries, sectors and localities to review legal procedures regarding the disbursement of public investment capital and propose solutions to deal with existing problems, while promptly allocating all the planned public investment capital sourced from the State budget for 2023.
Addressing a national conference on public investment disbursement on February 21, PM Chinh underlined that capital is both a resource and a motivation for development, helping create jobs, promote production and businesses, and minimise impact from the outside.
He stressed the need to facilitate the disbursement of public investment capital and the implementation of the socio-economic recovery and development programme as well as the three national target programmes.
The PM highlighted achievements in the completion of 310km of expressways and the opening of 255km to traffic, as well as the launching of 12 component projects of the eastern part of the North-South Expressway in the 2021-2025 period. At the same time, the socio-economic recovery and development programme has also seen good progress.
However, he emphasised that the disbursement of public investment still lags behind schedule, pointing out that unsuitable mechanisms as well as the poor coordination among relevant parties are among the reasons behind this situation.
At the same time, the implementation of the 2% interest rate subsidy package to support the socio-economic recovery and development programme has been slow with no effective measure to allocate the remaining 2.8 trillion VND (118.11 million USD). Meanwhile, as of January 30, the disbursement of capital for the three national target programmes had reached only 57% of the set target, he noted.
He asked ministries, sectors and localities to take drastic actions to accelerate funds utilisation, especially in institutions and policy, while strengthening coordination to ensure smooth and effective disbursement. The PM stressed the need to intensify digital transformation and the application of information technology, along with speed up administrative reform and inspection.
He also reminded them of the need for the selection of quality consultation units and contractors for specific projects, the encouragement of investment in public-private partnership (PPP) format, and the strict punishment of those committing violations that delay the work.
According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, as of January 31, over 541.85 trillion VND (22.85 billion USD) of public investment capital allocated for 2022 had been disbursed, fulfilling 93.5% of the plan, with eight ministries and central agencies and 30 localities completing 100% of their targets.
In 2023, total public capital to be disbursed is 711.7 trillion VND (29.96 billion USD), up more than 130 trillion VND from the figure in 2022. As of February 17, more than 595.61 trillion VND of the public investment capital for 2023 had been allocated and assigned for ministries, agencies and localities, reaching 84.2% of the plan.
Regarding the socio-economic recovery and development programme , PM Chinh assigned Deputy PM Le Minh Khai to take the charge of directing the implementation of the programme and the Ministry of Finance to mobilise resources for it and provide capital to the Vietnam Bank for Social Policies.
The State Bank of Vietnam was required to draft and submit to the Government a decree on the supplementation and adjustment of Decree 31/2022/ND-CP in interest rate support in February to speed up the disbursement of the 2% interest rate support package.
The PM also asked the Ministry of Finance to coordinate with other ministries, sectors and localities to review the allocation of resources for the programme in 2023 and report to the Government at the regular Cabinet meeting each month.
For the implementation of the three national target programmes on socio-economic development in ethnic-inhabited and mountainous areas, sustainable poverty reduction and new-style rural area building, PM Chinh assigned Deputy PM Tran Luu Quang to track their progress. He requested stakeholders to issue the three remaining guiding documents for the implementation of the programmes, and quickly amend unsuitable legal documents relevant to the programmes./.
