Mr. Vuong was speaking while leading a delegation from the sub-committee in charge of documents for the 13th National Party Congress to work with HCMC Party Committee in preparation for the congress. The working session was attended by Politburo member and Secretary of the HCMC Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan and other party and city leaders.
According to Mr. Vuong, HCMC needs to pay attention to improving the competitive ability and structure of the economy; social development management including cultural development, social safety and order management and national security; and regional connectivity.
Especially, Mr. Vuong noted that HCMC should pay heed to the development of the Party and the political system which he said a core and very important matter.
“HCMC is the country’s economic locomotive contributing much in drawing up lines and policies for the country,” said Mr. Vuong. Many new ideas have been originating from the city. Hence, he hoped that the working session will record lots of good experience to prepare documents for the 13th Party Congress meeting the country’s development requirements.
HCMC has creatively applied polices of the Party and the State to overcome many difficulties and challenges and obtain many positive results. Of these, economic growth averaged 8.3 percent a year in the phase from 2016-2020. HCMC’s Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) accounts for 20 percent of the country GDP. GRDP per capita increased from US$5,200 in 2015 to $6,065 in 2018.
These results continue affirming the significantly important role of HCMC as a special city, a big economic, cultural, education-training and science-technology hub, an international exchange and integration gateway and a locomotive with large attraction and pervasion of the southern key economic zone, said Mr. Vuong.
Still he estimated that although HCMC maintained economic growth pace but it has slowed down in recent years.
“With only 1 percent growth rate, HCMC will create a big impact to the country. On the contrary, 1 percent fall will cause the country reduce too,” stressed Mr. Vuong saying that the practice requires HCMC to see its responsibility to the country.
He tasked the standing board of the city Party Committee to study solutions to continue promoting the city’s development locomotive role, step up growth and pay heed to sustainable development. The city should determine specific breakthrough fields and missions in association with three strategic breakthroughs set up by the Party namely infrastructure structure including traffic and information technology, institution and land management, which are three common missions of the country. Breakthrough missions should not skip anti-flooding and climate change adaptation.
He noted that HCMC should pay attention to solving problems in land management, which has seen a waste in not only HCMC but also the country, to better promote the resource.
Stating at the meeting, secretary of HCMC Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan expressed his gladness to receive the delegation. That was an important occasion for the city to review itself.
Acquiring opinions from Mr. Tran Quoc Vuong and other opinions at the meeting, Mr. Nhan said that HCMC has three sub committees working to prepare for the Party Congress of all levels in the next tenure. The working session helped the city better prepare for the next tenure congress. The city will further study contents mentioned at the meeting.
On behalf of the standing board of the HCMC Party Committee Mr. Tran Luu Quang reported results of party-building and rectification work for the last past.
Meantime, chairman of the city People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong estimated ten-year implementation of the Political Creed 2011 and socieoeconomic missions in the 10th congress of the city Party Committee in the tenure from 2016-2020.
The chairman reported that economic sectors structure in the city has transferred into encouraging the development of non-state ones and expand the development of foreign sector towards international integration.
“Economic sectors all develop, provide jobs and reduce urban unemployment rate year by year,” commented Mr. Phong.
Still their development has been unstable, he added. HCMC has been short of caliber domestic enterprises with the ability of innovating as well as building and portraying “locomotive city” with products playing the role “development brand names” of the city. In land field, general institutional frameworks have not caught up with practice resulting in problems in implementing land policies.
HCMC has started implementation of Smart City project, the Innovation District in the East of the city and the National Assembly’s Resolution 54.
At the meeting, Mr. Phong clarified three big problems in policies which should be solved for the city to continue reform. Currently, HCMC has 13 million residents including permanent people. This has caused work overloading for administrative civil servants. So the city suggested civil servant payrolls suitable with practice. Aside from that, current decentralization regulations according to Decree 93/2001 of the Government have no longer been suitable and need be adjusted and supplemented to promote the city’s potential and resources.
Land management has showed many problems, especially to the regulation on land use right value assessment and five-year stability period of land price list which have been no longer conformable because of land price fluctuations in the market. HCMC so proposed the Prime Minister to stipulate the coordination between the city and ministries as well as agencies to speed up arrangement and handling of properties belonging to state ownership in the city.
Moreover, Mr. Phong reported problems in budget finance. For instance, there is no unification in central budget allocation decisions about Official Development Assistance (ODA) capital disbursement resulting in complaints and interest penalties for slow payment.
There should be more reasonable decentralization mechanism for budget management, and fair but not equal budget allocation for not only HCMC but also other localities with fast and sustainable development potentials to contribute to the common development of the country according to the NA Resolution 54 as well as orientations of the Party and the State, he said.
