In his speech, Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong first praised state departments, the local authorities of all districts and Thu Duc City, and healthcare workers, laborers in HCMC for their contribution to fight against Covid-19 during Tet holiday, helping all residents to have a warm and merry time.
Regarding the upcoming tasks in 2021, Chairman Phong asked that all cadres in state units and businesses, organizations sited in HCMC prioritize Covid-19 prevention.
He also affirmed that the city has sufficient test kits to detect the virus, with the regular capacity of processing 15,000 samples a day, up to the maximum of 30,000 samples at peak time. There are now 317 healthcare teams available to collect from 100,000 to 200,000 samples per day for testing. More importantly, he demanded that HCMC have to maintain all necessary activities to avoid community infection at all cost.
In order to fulfill the dual goal of containing the pandemic and restarting the economy, the Chairman instructed related state offices to launch the second support package for businesses affected by Covid-19 so that they can overcome possible difficulties in their manufacturing and trading activities.
At one point of his speech, Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong mentioned the case of a company complaining about the unbearable time to wait for an investment permit. Normally, it takes 10 days to adjust details in an investment permit, but the HCMC Department of Planning and Investment needed 30 days to finish this job.
“When a business encounters trouble, state offices should have cooperated to aid it to solve the problem. Instead, these organizations separately address each small issue, prolonging the processing time and negatively affecting the investment environment of the city”, said Chairman Phong.
He then asked that state officers work seriously right after their Tet holiday, prioritizing business-related documents to promote manufacturing and trading activities.
Finally, the Chairman requested that the local authorities of all districts and Thu Duc City implement the resolutions issued in the 13th National Party Congress and the 11th HCMC Party Congress. Among them are 51 parts, programs, and projects in the three major breakthrough programs and one key program to develop HCMC, aiming at fulfill the goals of this year’s theme – Establishing an Urban Administration and Improving the Investment Environment.
In his report about tasks for Tet holiday, Vice Chairman of HCMC People’s Committee Vo Van Hoan revealed that despite the hardship of Covid-19 pandemic, the municipal authorities were able to take care of nearly 700,000 poor and disadvantaged families located in the city.
The total amount for this task is VND1,025 billion (approx. US$44.6 million), including the sum of VND239 billion ($10.4 million) mobilized from the community. This is an increase of VND12 billion ($522,000) compared to 2020.
HCMC also paid 13 visits to other provinces that encountered disasters last year.
Vice Chairman Hoan happily reported that most residents in HCMC strictly observed all regulations laid out by the municipal authorities regarding Covid-19 prevention and minimized their visits to relatives or friends during Tet holiday
More importantly, leaders of the city canceled their trip back to their hometown so that they could timely handle possible dangerous situations raised by Covid-19 and ensure public safety. There is no case that state officers host year-end or year-welcoming parties in their organizations. Neither do they use the city’s budget for visits to other state units in the city.
Mentioning the existing problems during this Tet holiday, the Vice Chairman shared that there are still cases of illegally letting off firecrackers and gambling. Certain individuals and small food shops still do not obey the 5K rule.
Standing Deputy Secretary of HCMC Party Committee Tran Luu Quang stated in the conference that the city leaders must actively implement resolutions issued in the 13th National Party Congress and the 11th HCMC Party Congress, along with proper monitoring and examination.
One essential task in the upcoming time is to successfully organize the general elections for the National Assembly and People’s Councils at all levels on May 21, 2021.
At the end of the conference, 294 groups were awarded with a certificate of merit for their outstanding job in taking care of the community in this Tet holiday.
