Today, the Politburo considered the project of merging provinces and abolishing district level.

Thus, just one month since February 14 - the Politburo issued Conclusion 126 on a number of contents and tasks to continue to arrange and streamline the organization of the political system in 2025, the plan to merge provinces, abolish district level, and merge communes has been shaped.

Each commune is a small district.

At the first meeting of the Steering Committee for the implementation of the arrangement and reorganization of administrative units at all levels and the construction of a two-level local government model yesterday, Minister of Home Affairs Pham Thi Thanh Tra said that currently, the country has 10,035 commune-level administrative units, and will reorganize them to only about 2,000 units. At that time, each commune will be "almost a small district".

Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Hoa Binh also informed that in the Government's project submitted to the Politburo today, when the district level is abolished, 1/3 of the district level's tasks will be transferred to the province, 2/3 will be transferred to the commune (base level).

Previously, at the meeting on March 11, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said that the Standing Committee of the Government Party Committee agreed to submit to competent authorities a plan that after the rearrangement, the number of provincial-level administrative units will be reduced by about 50% and the number of grassroots-level administrative units will be reduced by about 60-70% compared to the present.

It can be seen that the plan submitted by the Government to the Politburo is a two-level local government model including provincial and communal levels (grassroots), no longer district level. In which, some provinces will be merged so that the whole country will have about 30 provinces and cities and about 2,000 communes instead of 63 provinces and cities and 10,035 communes as at present.

Looking back at the preparation process over the past month, we can affirm the highest political determination, implementing in accordance with the motto "running while queuing" of the Politburo, Secretariat and Government.

One month ago, the Politburo and the Secretariat issued Conclusion 126 assigning the Government Party Committee to preside over and coordinate with the Central Organizing Committee, the National Assembly Party Committee, and relevant Party committees and organizations to study the orientation to continue to reorganize and eliminate the intermediate administrative level (district level); develop a plan to continue to reorganize the commune level in accordance with the new organizational model, propose the organization of the apparatus, functions, tasks, powers, and responsibilities of the commune level; and at the same time, orient the merger of a number of provincial-level administrative units.

Two weeks later, on February 28, the Politburo and Secretariat issued Conclusion 127 on implementing research and proposing to continue to reorganize the apparatus of the political system.

In particular, the Politburo requested to study the orientation of merging some provincial-level units, not organizing at the district level, merging some commune-level units; implementing a 2-level local model (party, government, and mass organizations) to ensure streamlining, efficiency, effectiveness, and efficiency.

The Government Party Committee was assigned to develop a project and submit it to the Politburo on merging a number of provincial-level administrative units, not organizing at the district level, and continuing to merge commune-level administrative units.

"Golden opportunity"

The policy of rearranging administrative units at all levels was set forth in Resolution 18, the 6th conference of the 12th term in 2017 (on a number of issues on continuing to innovate and rearrange the organization of the political system to be streamlined and operate effectively and efficiently).

One of the specific tasks and solutions to implement the goals of streamlining the organizational apparatus is clearly stated in Resolution 18: "Step by step arrange, consolidate, and reorganize district and commune-level administrative units that do not meet the standards prescribed by law; encourage mergers and increase the size of administrative units at all levels in places with sufficient conditions to improve management and operation capacity and strengthen local resources".

Resolution 27/2022 of the 6th Conference of the 13th Central Committee on continuing to build and perfect the Socialist rule of law State of Vietnam in the new period also clearly states: "Continue to arrange district and commune-level administrative units; study and pilot the arrangement of provincial-level administrative units in accordance with the overall planning of administrative units of the country and each locality".

To implement this policy, from 2017 to present, the whole country has carried out two rounds of administrative unit rearrangement at district and commune levels in 2019-2021 and 2023-2025.

As a result, the number of district-level administrative units decreased from 713 to 696; the number of commune-level administrative units decreased from 11,162 to 10,035.

Regarding provincial administrative units, over the past 7 years, 63 provinces and cities have remained unchanged. There are 57 provinces and 6 centrally-run cities including: Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Can Tho, Hai Phong and Hue City, which have just been upgraded at the end of 2024.

Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Viet Thong - former General Secretary and Standing Member of the Central Theoretical Council said that the Government's plan to reduce the number of provinces by about 50% and reduce 60-70% of commune-level units is completely feasible.

Because according to him, in the history of our country, even in the feudal period, there were only 31 provinces and cities. By 1975, the whole country had 72 provinces and cities, but by 1976 (after the 4th Party Congress), many provinces and cities were merged, leaving 38 provinces and cities with 400 districts likened to 400 fortresses and about 6,000 communes. Through many arrangements, our country now has 63 provinces and cities; 696 districts and 10,035 communes.

According to Mr. Thong, the arrangement of administrative units at the commune, district and even provincial levels has a clear policy in the documents of the 13th Congress as well as the Party's resolutions, but the direction to completely abolish the district level is a new policy.

Explaining why the Party this time proposed to eliminate the district level, Mr. Thong stated that in reality there had been many studies and ideas raised about this in the previous stage, which also identified the district level as an intermediate level.

However, after many discussions, there were still disagreements, so this content was not mentioned in the Party's resolutions and was still organized according to the local government model with 3 levels: province, district, and commune.

Reality as well as research experience of many countries shows that the model of 2-level local government is suitable for the progress of the world. Many countries now organize this model, Japan is a typical example.

"This time, we boldly abolished district-level administrative units, merged some provinces and streamlined commune-level administrative units. In my opinion, this is 'taking advantage of the victory' when the entire Party and people support the recent streamlining of the political system apparatus, which we have done very well at lightning speed," Mr. Thong emphasized.

With the recent results, Associate Professor, Dr. Nguyen Viet Thong stated that there is no reason why we should not abolish the district level and continue to arrange to merge the provincial and communal levels.

"This is a golden opportunity that we must seize to successfully carry out the revolution of streamlining the apparatus before the 14th Party Congress, the decisive moment to bring the country into the era of national advancement," said Mr. Thong.