Chairing the 5th Conference of the Southeast Regional Coordination Council, with the theme "Double-digit economic growth in the Southeast region by 2025: Challenges, opportunities and solutions" on the afternoon of December 2 in Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Chairman of the Regional Coordination Council, requested the Southeast region to strive for double-digit growth in 2025 and the coming time to join the whole country in entering a new era - the era of national development.
GRDP growth rate is slowing down
The conference assessed that in 2024, the GRDP growth rate of the Southeast region is estimated to reach 6.38%, lower than the national average, ranking 4th among the 6 economic regions. The region's GRDP scale in 2024 will reach 3,565.94 trillion VND; average income per capita is estimated to reach 187.38 million VND/year, ranking first among economic regions and higher than the national average.
The service sector accounts for about 41-42% of GRDP; the industrial and construction sector accounts for 45-46% (of which the processing and manufacturing industry accounts for about 33%); the agricultural, forestry and fishery sector accounts for 2-3%.
Total state budget revenue in 2024 is estimated at VND 733.1 trillion, accounting for about 42.2% of the country's total state budget revenue, up 3.6% compared to the estimate assigned by the Prime Minister, with 5/6 localities increasing revenue. Export value is estimated at 115.7 billion USD, accounting for 31% of the country's total export value; import turnover of all provinces increased over the same period, the whole region increased by 11%.
The Southeast region continues to lead the country in both the number of projects and total foreign direct investment capital. As of October 31, 2024, there were 21,174 projects and 189.011 billion USD, respectively, of which Ho Chi Minh City ranked first in the country with the number of projects accounting for nearly 32.2% of the number of projects and nearly 12% of the total registered capital.
In 2024, the Southeast region will have the largest number of newly registered and re-operated enterprises among the six socio-economic regions, estimated to increase by 9.8% over the same period. Regarding public investment disbursement, by November 30, 2024, the region's disbursement reached VND 54,060 billion/VND 147,650 billion of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister, reaching 36.61%, lower than the national average.
Currently, the average GRDP growth rate of the region is slowing down, lower than the average growth rate of the whole country. To promote the mission of being a dynamic region, a growth pole of the whole country, it is necessary to promptly assess the causes and have timely solutions.
The Southeast region is currently facing many difficulties and challenges such as traffic congestion, lack of infrastructure, flooding, response to climate change, etc. while there are many potentials and advantages that have not been fully exploited. Transport infrastructure has not kept up with the pace of economic development, traffic connections between localities and Ho Chi Minh City are not complete and lack synchronization; public investment disbursement has not met the required progress, and problems related to public investment disbursement are still slow to be resolved.
Industry is one of the three important pillars of the region, but its development is still unsustainable, with low added value, unreasonable allocation, and heavy dependence on foreign-invested enterprises. Port-connected transport infrastructure is a bottleneck; a diverse logistics service ecosystem has not yet been formed in the Southeast region to meet the needs of goods circulation of the whole region, including: Distribution centers, truck depots, dry ports, etc.; customs services, specialized inspection, technical infrastructure, information technology, human resources, etc.
Along with assessing the socio-economic situation of the Southeast region in 2024 and development solutions for 2025, the Regional Council spent a lot of time assessing the implementation of key projects in the Southeast region; mechanisms and resource mobilization for investment in infrastructure construction, inter-regional projects connecting traffic in the Southeast region; developing high-quality human resources in high-tech fields in the Southeast region; especially solutions to remove obstacles in implementing key programs and projects.
Concluding the Conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh assessed that in 2024, in the context of many difficulties and challenges in the international and domestic situations, along with the whole country, the socio-economic situation of the Southeast region continued to recover positively, achieving many important results in all fields, higher than the same period in 2023, in the context of suffering severe consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The key tasks and inter-regional projects have been actively implemented by local ministries and branches and have achieved important results. In particular, completing the review and submitting to competent authorities to amend legal regulations, including the Law on Public Investment, the Law amending 4 laws; completing the submission to the Politburo for approval in principle to build an international financial center in Ho Chi Minh City; promoting the implementation of the Bien Hoa - Vung Tau expressway project; many other key projects in the region are being urgently completed such as the Ben Luc - Long Thanh expressway, the T3 Passenger Terminal Construction Project - Tan Son Nhat International Airport, etc.
Along with acknowledging, appreciating and praising the efforts and important results of the Southeast region and localities in the region in recent times, contributing significantly to the country's overall achievements, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also frankly acknowledged that the Southeast region still has limitations such as the GRDP growth rate tends to slow down, disbursement of public investment capital has not met requirements, industrial development is not truly sustainable, connecting transport infrastructure still has bottlenecks, and a logistics service ecosystem has not been formed to meet the needs of goods circulation.
The Prime Minister noted that the progress of implementing the tasks of the Regional Coordination Council is still slow, and many projects have not been implemented. Of the 29 tasks assigned to be implemented in 2024, it is expected that 7 tasks will be completed; the remaining 22 tasks are proposed to continue to be implemented in 2025...
Striving for double-digit economic growth
Analyzing the international and domestic situation in the coming time, there are opportunities, advantages, difficulties and challenges intertwined, the Prime Minister requested the Regional Council and each member, ministries, agencies and localities in the Region to strive for 2025 and the coming time for the whole region to achieve a double-digit economic growth rate.
To achieve the above goals, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh requested ministries, branches and localities to continue to improve institutions, remove bottlenecks and open up development; renew the three traditional growth drivers: investment, export and consumption; promote new growth drivers such as digital economy, green economy, circular economy, sharing economy, knowledge economy, night economy; focus on training high-quality human resources, especially in emerging industries; change and restructure governance towards intelligence, using digital technology; strengthen security and order management, fight against negativity and waste; research and propose policy mechanisms, remove difficulties for development.
The Prime Minister specifically directed to resolve difficulties and promote key projects in the Region. Accordingly, the Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 4 project, invested by the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, decided to split the component projects to localities and have appropriate policies and mechanisms to implement and complete procedures in the first quarter of 2025. The Can Gio International Transit Port project assigned the Ministry of Transport to coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment to complete procedures in December 2024. At the same time, focus on completing the Ho Chi Minh City Flood Control Project; urgently complete the project to build the Ho Chi Minh City International Financial Center, basically forming the Center in the first quarter of 2025.
Regarding the construction of a free trade zone and an offshore wind power industrial center in Ba Ria - Vung Tau, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the People's Committee of Ba Ria - Vung Tau province are assigned to coordinate and promote implementation.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh also directed relevant ministries and branches to coordinate with localities to review and promote regional connectivity projects and Long Thanh International Airport connectivity projects, including the project connecting Tan Son Nhat International Airport and Long Thanh International Airport; urgently complete procedures in the first quarter of 2025 to start construction of the Binh Phuoc - Dak Nong; Ho Chi Minh City - Tay Ninh expressway; study the construction of the Ho Chi Minh City - Bien Hoa railway, connecting with Thi Vai - Cai Mep Port, Can Gio Port; agree to build the Ho Chi Minh City - My Thuan expressway under the form of public-private partnership, deploy construction on a scale of 8 lanes...
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh directed ministries, branches and localities to proactively carry out tasks according to their functions and duties, avoiding shirking tasks; issues beyond their authority must be promptly submitted to competent authorities for consideration. In particular, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment promptly handles issues related to land and environment; the Ministry of Science and Technology handles issues related to the development of high-tech zones; regarding the issue of landfill materials, the Prime Minister assigned Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha to be in charge, consider importing, and at the same time use sea sand for landfill.
The Prime Minister called on Council members to be more active and proactive in implementing tasks and solutions to strongly and effectively promote regional coordination activities, especially regional and inter-regional projects; in which, focusing on directing, urging, and removing difficulties and obstacles to complete projects on schedule; and overcoming development bottlenecks.
Requesting provinces and cities to review, if there are any problems, summarize, clearly state what the problems are, where, who is doing it, when... and send them to the Government Office to submit to the Prime Minister before December 10, 2024 for consideration and resolution, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh believes that with the determination of the Party Committee, government, political system and people of the provinces, they will successfully achieve the set goals; together with the whole country, step into a new era - the era of national growth, wealth and prosperity, people are increasingly prosperous and happy.
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![[Photo] Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh chairs Government Conference with localities on economic growth](https://vstatic.vietnam.vn/vietnam/resource/IMAGE/2025/2/21/f34583484f2643a2a2b72168a0d64baa)
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