Removing difficulties and obstacles for three national target programs

The conference was connected online to 63 provinces and centrally run cities.

Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Tran Van Quan chaired at Hai Duong bridge.

With the goal of striving by the end of 2025, the whole province will have at least 60% of communes (107 communes) meeting advanced new rural standards and at least 20% of communes (36 communes) meeting model new rural standards, Hai Duong is focusing on directing localities to actively implement from registration to improving and perfecting criteria for consideration and recognition of meeting advanced and model standards according to regulations.

Currently, the whole province has 29 communes registered to meet advanced new rural standards and 12 communes registered to meet model new rural standards. As of June 30, 2023, there have been 19 dossiers requesting appraisal of communes meeting advanced new rural standards and model new rural standards in 2022 (15 advanced communes and 4 model communes). It is expected that by November 2023, the district-level People's Committee will review, and in December 2023, the provincial People's Committee will review and consider recognizing these communes as meeting the standards.

As of August 15, 2023, Hai Duong had 43 communes meeting advanced new rural standards, 4 communes meeting model new rural standards, and 1 district registered to implement advanced new rural district criteria from the beginning of 2023.

According to the report of the Ministry of Planning and Investment at the meeting, implementing national target programs (new rural construction, socio-economic development of ethnic minority and mountainous areas, sustainable poverty reduction) for the period 2021 - 2025, the Steering Committee for the National Target Program at the central and provincial levels has been strengthened and established, ensuring unity in direction and operation. Management institutions and policies have been issued in a complete and synchronous manner, ensuring the legal basis for organizing the implementation of the programs.

From 2021 to 2023, the total capital allocated from the central budget to ministries, central agencies and localities to implement the three programs is more than 83 trillion VND. The disbursement of public investment capital in 2023 for the programs implemented up to August 31, 2023 reached about more than 16 trillion VND (47.81% of the plan).

At the meeting, ministries, branches and localities focused on discussing and clarifying the achieved results, sharing implementation experiences, pointing out difficulties and obstacles in the implementation process; at the same time, proposing recommendations and solutions to improve the effectiveness of implementing national target programs in the coming time.

Localities reported that the allocation of public capital to each sub-project and program prevented localities from transferring capital from projects that were behind schedule or unable to disburse to projects with faster disbursement progress but lacking capital. At the same time, it was recommended that the Central Government announce the expected allocation of public capital in 5-year periods so that localities could be proactive in mobilizing counterpart funds and making implementation plans.

Converting forest land and rice fields to other uses requires a lot of time and effort; the level of housing support (VND 40 million/household) and construction of clean water supply works (VND 3 billion/works) from the Central Government is still low, especially for mountainous areas and localities with limited resources; some indicators (clean water, cremation rate, etc.) exceed the implementation capacity of the locality.

Through 6 field trips and working with localities by Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang in 4 regions across the country, it was found that there are many fragmented projects, complicated procedures while the capacity and qualifications of the grassroots level in many places are still weak, which can easily lead to risks in personnel work.

Concluding the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang requested that ministries, branches and localities further enhance their sense of responsibility and determination in direction and management; especially, promote the role of leaders in organizing the implementation of the set goals and plans of each program. Ministries, branches and localities carefully study legal documents, and then continue to propose opinions and recommendations to the Government and relevant ministries and branches to promptly remove shortcomings and obstacles in order to improve the effectiveness of implementing national target programs.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang noted that localities need to promote proactiveness in the implementation process; flexibly integrate capital sources to accelerate disbursement progress and effectively promote capital sources of national target programs in the locality.

Regarding the tasks in the coming time, the Deputy Prime Minister requested ministries, branches and localities to be more drastic in organizing implementation because reality shows that localities that are more proactive and drastic have higher disbursement rates.

At the upcoming session, the National Assembly will hear a report from the Supervisory Delegation on the implementation of the Government's three national target programs. This is the first time the National Assembly has supervised national target programs during their implementation.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that at the upcoming 6th Session, the Government will submit to the National Assembly for consideration and promulgation a number of specific mechanisms to remove difficulties and obstacles for localities in implementing national target programs for the 2021-2025 period.

The Deputy Prime Minister assigned the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Government Office and relevant agencies to fully prepare documents and reports of the Government on the implementation of the National Assembly's resolutions approving investment policies for national target programs for the 2021-2025 period to serve the National Assembly's Supreme Supervisory Delegation.