Proposal to amend and supplement the Resolution on urban classification

Scene of the working session. (Photo: Pham Kien/VNA)

On the morning of July 29, at the National Assembly House, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue and National Assembly Vice Chairman Nguyen Khac Dinh chaired a meeting with the Law Committee, the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the Ministry of Construction on receiving, explaining, recommending, and proposing contents related to amending and supplementing Resolution No. 1210/2016/NQ-UBTQH13 dated June 25, 2016 of the National Assembly Standing Committee on urban classification (Resolution 1210) and Resolution 1211/2016/UBTVQH13 dated May 25, 2016 of the National Assembly Standing Committee on standards of administrative units and classification of administrative units (Resolution 1211).

According to the report, the Government proposed to amend 4/15 articles, add one new article and abolish one article to Resolution 1210, focusing on adding regulations on urban classification according to regional factors, amending regulations on urban classification applicable to some urban areas with special factors.

The Government also proposed to amend and supplement 10/32 articles, add 4 new articles and abolish one article of Resolution 1211, focusing on amending and supplementing the standards of administrative units in special cases.

The purpose of amending and supplementing regulations on standards for administrative units, especially administrative units with specific characteristics in mountainous, highland, border areas, with a large number of ethnic minorities, in coastal alluvial areas, with special values ​​in terms of cultural heritage and tourism... is to create a legal basis for continuing to arrange administrative units in the period of 2022-2025, with a vision to 2030.

Urban classification aims to establish a basis for assessing urban quality; arrange and develop the urban system nationwide; accurately reflect the level of urban development and urbanization, serve as a basis for planning, management, and urban development policy making; attract investment, improve urban quality and living conditions...

Speaking at the conference, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue assessed that the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Construction had made thorough, elaborate, and complete preparations for the draft resolutions. These two draft resolutions focus on the classification of administrative units and urban areas.

Noting that amendments and supplements need to be based on practical, theoretical, scientific and international experience, the National Assembly Chairman emphasized that the content of resolutions needs to be nationally consistent and take into account specific factors.

At the conference, representatives of relevant agencies emphasized the need to amend and supplement to institutionalize the Party's policies and specify legal regulations on the organization of administrative units and urban development in the spirit of the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress and related Resolutions and documents. This is also the work of inheriting the regulations of Resolution 1211 and Resolution 1210 that have been tested in practice to be reasonable and correct; only amending regulations that are no longer suitable, problematic, and inadequate; at the same time, supplementing new issues that have become clear through the process of summarizing practice.

The revised and supplemented contents in the two resolutions need to be explained in the spirit of the National Assembly Chairman's direction that they must be based on scientific theory, practice, and reference to international experience, especially regarding standards and criteria.

National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue speaks. (Photo: Pham Kien/VNA)

Concluding the meeting, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Khac Dinh emphasized that the majority of opinions agreed on the necessity of amending the two resolutions, and agreed on the amendment viewpoint for mature and clear contents and issues.

Noting that the drafting agency should absorb comments and study more international experience to perfect the new draft Resolution, the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly emphasized the viewpoint of only making one-step revisions, not comprehensive revisions, as well as ensuring consistency and synchronization between these two Resolutions.

Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Khac Dinh emphasized the amendments and supplements to institutionalize the Party's policies, meet practical requirements and summarize the supervision activities of the National Assembly Standing Committee.

The Vice Chairman of the National Assembly requested the Ministry of Construction and the Ministry of Home Affairs to absorb the opinions at the conference, continue to complete the reporting documents, to complete separate drafts of the two Resolutions in August 2022 for the National Assembly's Law Committee to review, then submit to the National Assembly Standing Committee in September 2022 for consideration and approval.

The Vice Chairman of the National Assembly noted that in the dossier, the Law Committee must clarify the necessity of amendment; in the necessity, it must be based on scientific grounds, political and legal bases, historical factors, citing Article 128 of the Law on Organization of Local Government, which is the principle that administrative units are organized stably on the basis of existing administrative units.

In that spirit, the revised contents need to focus on clarifying general and specific regulations. The general regulations are basically not revised, while specific regulations have different criteria (regions, areas, etc.), clarifying 5 more groups of criteria, mainly revising population size, population ratio and natural area to meet practical requirements. Urban quality is basically increasing, there are some specific urban areas but basically they are new urban concepts (tourist urban areas, ecological urban areas, forests and mountains, etc.), so appropriate criteria are needed...

Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Khac Dinh suggested that the amendments should ensure consistency and synchronization between the two Resolutions.

According to VNA