Provincial Party Secretary Duong Van An: Binh Thuan's potential and development prospects, becoming an attractive investment location

BTO-At the regular meeting of the Provincial People's Council at the end of 2023, opening on the morning of December 6, Comrade Duong Van An - Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Head of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation gave an important speech related to the socio-economic situation, national defense - security, judicial sector in 2023, directions and tasks in 2024. Binh Thuan Newspaper summarizes some important contents for readers.

*Provincial Party Secretary Duong Van An spoke at the Provincial People's Council meeting on the morning of December 6.*

The tourism industry quickly recovered and developed impressively.

Opening his speech, the Provincial Party Secretary emphasized that Binh Thuan enters 2023 with many opportunities, advantages, and motivations for development. That is the great attention and support of the Party and State leaders, leaders of central departments, ministries, and branches with visits, working sessions, and very profound and comprehensive directions. The opportunity when the North-South expressway Vinh Hao - Phan Thiet, Phan Thiet - Dau Giay is put into use, helping to shorten travel time, transport passengers and goods from places to Binh Thuan, especially from the key economic region in the South and vice versa, much more convenient...

In addition, the province has the initiative to host the National Tourism Year with more than 70 exciting, attractive and novel activities, helping the tourism industry quickly recover and develop impressively. At the same time, many large investors have more clearly recognized the potential and development prospects of Binh Thuan, becoming an attractive investment location.

Some notable highlights include: 3 sectors identified as the province's economic pillars continued to grow, of which tourism had the highest growth with a total of 8.35 million visitors (up 46%), revenue reaching over 22.3 trillion VND (up 63%), being one of the 10 provinces and cities with the highest total number of visitors and tourism revenue in the country. GRDP growth reached 8.1%, ranking 14th out of 63 provinces and cities and 4th out of 14 provinces and cities in the North Central and Central Coast regions. Many difficulties and obstacles in socio-economic development that have been lingering for many years in many areas are being gradually resolved.

In the cultural and social fields, there have been many positive changes, the quality of education has been improved, social security and social welfare have been well implemented, the poverty rate has decreased; per capita income has increased by 5.1% compared to 2022. National defense, security, order and social safety in the province have been maintained...

*The North-South Expressway passes through Binh Thuan.*

There is still fear of mistakes and fear of responsibility.

In addition to the achievements, the Provincial Party Secretary assessed that the province still faces many difficulties and challenges, including impacts from external factors such as the global economic crisis, high prices and input materials, difficult financial, monetary and real estate markets, etc. Internal factors such as the fear of making mistakes and fear of responsibility among a number of cadres and civil servants have led to delays in work. A number of problems, obstacles and violations pointed out through inspections, examinations and investigations in the process of implementing socio-economic development tasks have not yet been resolved or handled. This has led to a situation where many socio-economic development projects have to "lie dormant", not being implemented, wasting social resources.

The Provincial Party Secretary assessed that the budget revenue growth rate is not high, some revenue sources are lower than estimated. Although the economic scale is over 100,000 billion VND, the mobilization of GRDP into budget revenue is still low (about 8.1%), while the whole country is 15.7%. The progress of implementing key projects is still slow. The results of disbursement of public investment capital by the end of November 2023 only reached 64.41% of the plan; support, resettlement and project implementation have not been resolved. The situation of encroachment on public land, project land, and illegal mineral exploitation in some places is still complicated but has not been effectively prevented, leading to people suspecting that there is "cover-up" and "backing" by some officials. Illegal construction and littering affecting the environment still occur in many places.

In addition, there are still limitations and weaknesses in administrative procedure reform, especially in procedures related to land, investment, and public procurement. For provincial People's Council delegates, through contact with voters, they promised to implement or forward voters' recommendations to competent state agencies, but there were also cases of forgetting, or forwarding but it was still a formality, not closely monitored and followed up...

Continue to develop 3 economic pillars evenly

According to the Provincial Party Secretary, 2024 is forecasted to face many difficulties, so the Provincial People's Council delegates discussed measures and solutions to focus on overcoming difficulties and limitations, promoting potential, internal strength, and new opportunities to continue to develop evenly the three economic pillars: industry - tourism - agriculture; promote attracting social investment...

The Provincial People's Committee and localities, departments, branches and staff, civil servants and public employees need to work with both responsibility and emotion, with heart and vision; dare to think, dare to do, dare to take responsibility, take work efficiency, satisfaction of people, businesses and the development of the province as a measure to evaluate the level of task completion. On the other hand, the provincial leaders suggested that in the 2024 work program, the Provincial People's Council should continue to promote the work of supervising the results of overcoming some remaining limitations and shortcomings that have lasted for many years. The attitude and responsibility of the staff, civil servants and public employees in the process of performing their tasks, especially in positions that regularly contact and directly resolve recommendations and proposals of people and businesses.

The Provincial Party Secretary requested the leaders of the Provincial People's Committee, departments, branches and localities to study, absorb, promote responsibility, and strengthen coordination to effectively resolve the legitimate needs and aspirations of voters and people. The Standing Committee of the Provincial People's Council, committees, delegations and each delegate of the Provincial People's Council should pay more attention to monitoring the results of resolving voters' petitions and aspirations by state agencies at all levels; promptly criticize and rectify cases of delay, prolongation or shirking of responsibility...

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