Finding solutions to accelerate and break through so that the Southeast region can achieve double-digit growth

NDO - On the afternoon of December 2, in Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, Chairman of the Southeast Regional Coordination Council, chaired the Council's 5th Conference with the theme "Double-digit" economic growth in the Southeast region by 2025: "Challenges, opportunities and solutions". Also attending was comrade Nguyen Van Nen, Politburo member, Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee.

In his opening remarks at the Conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized that this Conference will review and re-evaluate the work that has been implemented after the 4th Conference; what lessons can be drawn from leadership and direction to do better in the coming time? Problems must be resolved, difficulties must be overcome. In order to successfully implement the Resolution of the 10th Central Conference, 13th tenure, promoting the development of the Southeast region 2 at a comprehensive, sustainable and quality level in the coming period, by 2025, we must achieve a growth rate of 8-9%, which is a huge challenge, but there are many opportunities. Therefore, the Prime Minister emphasized that the Southeast region is a key region that makes an important contribution to the overall growth of the country, so it must be determined that this is both a responsibility and a very heavy obligation, but extremely important in the development of 2025 and the period 2026-2030.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh with representatives of leaders of provinces and cities in the Southeast region attending the conference. (Photo: THANH GIANG)

The Prime Minister stated that in 2025, the Southeast region must both accelerate and make a breakthrough, with economic growth striving to reach 8%, and at the same time, must reorganize and organize the apparatus to ensure streamlining, effective and efficient operations; and must organize Party Congresses at all levels, towards the 14th National Party Congress. Therefore, the Prime Minister requested that the ideology must be clear, the determination must be high, the efforts must be great, and there must be a focus, key points, and each task must be completed. The Prime Minister asked the delegates to find solutions to accelerate, make a breakthrough, and review the targets for the 2021-2025 period; must promote the spirit of daring to think, daring to do, daring to make a breakthrough for the common good, saying is doing, committing is implementing, doing, having done, must have specific results; the Party has directed, the Government has agreed, the National Assembly agrees, the people support, therefore "only discuss doing, not discuss retreating".

Representatives of leaders of provinces and cities in the Southeast region attended the conference. (Photo: THANH GIANG)

Regarding Long Thanh International Airport, the Prime Minister stated that the development of the Long Thanh airport ecosystem is related to the entire region, so there must be a breakthrough here. The Prime Minister has directed that it is necessary to plan the construction of an airport city and effectively exploit the airport. To do so, Long Thanh airport must have traffic connections with Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding areas.

The Prime Minister requested that the Secretaries, Chairmen of the People's Committees of provinces and cities, members of the Council, representatives of ministries and branches attending the conference discuss and clarify the implementation of tasks and solutions for the development of the Southeast region, identify difficulties and challenges in implementing the Resolution of the Politburo. Clearly state what has been done and what has not been done? Why? What are the difficulties and challenges that need to be overcome? Regarding institutions, mechanisms, policies, resources, human resources, finance, issues arising in coordination work? Intra-regional and inter-regional coordination, coordination between ministries, branches and localities? Propose and recommend some key directions, solutions, and specific tasks that need to be assigned to ministries, branches and localities? In particular, efforts must be made to achieve the double-digit growth target in the 2025-2030 period. Are there any breakthrough solutions?

The Southeast region is very favorable, logistics is also a solution to promote higher growth, reduce input costs, increase the proportion of logistics in the economic scale and participate in the global logistics value chain; the issue of Can Gio international container transit port; how to deploy the Ho Chi Minh City International Financial Center, connect the Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 4 Project?

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the conference. (Photo: THANH GIANG)

Regarding soft infrastructure, which is the institution for the entire region, the Prime Minister requested that localities must choose a number of areas to make breakthroughs and must propose; the issue of human resources to achieve double-digit growth. Each ministry, sector, and locality must try and make efforts; we must choose big things to make breakthroughs, for example, the 4th Ring Road has the nature of opening up connections for the entire region, making a breakthrough; then the routes connecting to Cambodia, Con Dao airport...

The Prime Minister also emphasized that the Government, ministries, and sectors, together with Ho Chi Minh City, will strive to complete the city's flood prevention project by December 2024.

* According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the GRDP growth rate of the Southeast region in 2024 is estimated at 6.38%, lower than the national average (the whole country is estimated at 6.8% -7%); ranking 4th out of 6 economic regions. The region's GRDP scale in 2024 is estimated at 3,565.94 trillion VND; average income per capita is estimated at 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%. The total state budget revenue in 2024 is estimated at 733.1 trillion VND, accounting for about 42.2% of the total state budget revenue of the whole country; an increase of 3.6% compared to the estimate assigned by the Prime Minister.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung speaks at the conference. (Photo: THANH GIANG)

Regarding import and export in 2024: the region's export activities will recover positively, with an estimated export value of 115.7 billion USD, accounting for 31% of the country's total export value; the import turnover of the provinces will also recover, all increasing over the same period, the whole region will increase by 11%. The Southeast region continues to lead the country in both the number of projects and total foreign direct investment capital implemented as of October 31, 2024, with 21,174 projects and 189.011 billion USD, respectively, of which Ho Chi Minh City ranks 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 6 economic regions, expected to increase by 9.8% over the same period. Regarding public investment disbursement: by November 30, 2024, the disbursement of the whole region will reach VND 54,060 billion/VND 147,650 billion of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister, reaching 36.61% lower than the national average (the whole country is 54.79%).

Conference scene. (Photo: THANH GIANG)

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, depots for trucks, empty containers, dry ports, etc.; customs services, specialized inspection, technical infrastructure, information technology, human resources, etc.

After listening to the opinions of leaders of ministries, branches and localities, concluding the conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh assessed that the socio-economic situation in the Southeast region continued to recover positively, achieving many important results in all fields, higher than the same period in 2023.

On behalf of the Government, the Prime Minister acknowledged, highly appreciated and commended the efforts and important results of the Party Committee, government and people of the Southeast region and localities in the region in recent times, making important contributions to the overall achievements of the country. In addition to the positive results, the Prime Minister frankly acknowledged that the Southeast region still has limitations and shortcomings and continues to face many difficulties and challenges.

The Prime Minister emphasized that in 2025, the whole country will still prioritize growth, strive for double-digit growth, along with ensuring macroeconomic stability, controlling inflation, and ensuring major balances. Regarding solutions, it is necessary to continue to perfect institutions; request localities to continue to review and detect obstacles to propose amendments. To achieve growth, it is still necessary to renew traditional growth drivers such as investment, consumption and export, focusing on disbursement of public investment capital; focus on new growth drivers such as digital transformation, green transformation, circular economy, knowledge economy, sharing economy; focus on and actively contribute to training high-quality human resources for the fields of artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductor chips; change governance; propose mechanisms and policies to remove difficulties, build common mechanisms and policies to remove difficulties for the whole region.

Regarding specific issues related to the Ho Chi Minh City Ring Road 4 Project, the Prime Minister assigned Ho Chi Minh City as the investment management agency, separating the project into component projects, separating the component project of Binh Duong province and assigning the province to do the component project first, and at the same time having a number of mechanisms and policies for the project, in the first quarter of 2025, it must complete approval and submit to the National Assembly specific mechanisms and policies such as bidding, capital mobilization, bond issuance, etc., ensuring that the procedures are completed in the first quarter of 2025 for implementation.

Regarding the Can Gio international container transit port, the Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Planning and Investment to review and complete procedures by December 2024.

Regarding the construction of the Ba Ria-Vung Tau Free Trade Zone and the Offshore Wind Power Center, the Prime Minister requested the province to proactively work with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and relevant ministries to promote the project; review regional traffic connection projects, and by 2025, complete traffic projects connecting Long Thanh Airport.

For Long Thanh International Airport, efforts must be made to basically complete all items by 2025.

Regarding the project to build the Ho Chi Minh City International Financial Center, the Ministry of Planning and Investment and Ho Chi Minh City will try to implement the necessary procedures this December, try to complete the mechanisms and policies, and complete the Center in the first quarter of 2025.

Regarding the Binh Phuoc-Dak Nong and Ho Chi Minh City-Tay Ninh expressways, the localities assigned to be investors must urgently implement them. If there are any problems, they must report to the Government. The procedures must be completed in the first quarter.

The traffic routes connecting Long Thanh airport with Tan Son Nhat airport must be reviewed to propose additional mechanisms and policies to speed up the project.

Regarding breakthrough solutions, ministries and branches need to specify according to their functions, tasks, and powers, and not shirk responsibility. Accordingly, regarding land, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment must study and consider, regarding High-tech Park, the Ministry of Science and Technology must consider and resolve thoroughly in the first quarter of 2025.

Regarding sand construction materials, the Prime Minister requested the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha to handle the matter, and the Ministry of Transport to provide specific instructions on the use of sea sand as filling material for each project.

Regarding the Loc Ninh-Ho Chi Minh City-Bien Hoa railway project connecting Thi Vai-Cai Mep port and possibly connecting Can Gio port, consider the efficiency.

Regarding the disbursement of public investment capital, the provinces will review any obstacles and bottlenecks and report to the Government before December 10, 2024...; the Government is determined to resolve the Ho Chi Minh City flood prevention project in order to have a policy in 2024, and strive to complete it in the first and second quarters of 2025.

Source: https://nhandan.vn/tim-giai-phap-tang-toc-but-pha-de-vung-dong-nam-bo-dat-muc-tang-truong-2-con-so-post848112.html