Strong local decentralization

On the morning of November 6, Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung explained and clarified a number of opinions raised by National Assembly deputies on the draft Law on Public Investment (amended).

Regarding promoting decentralization and delegation of power, Mr. Dung cited experience from China, where a Chinese province built 2,000km of highway in three years.

"I asked a minister why it was done so quickly, why China was able to do so much, why was it so cheap?", Mr. Dung said.

Mr. Dung said, they answered three questions. One, do they dare to borrow? Two, is there strong decentralization to the locality? Three, establish state-owned companies to carry out public investment projects, then transfer the exploitation rights to the private sector, recover the capital and still take advantage of private capital and state capital to do other things.

"If we follow the regulations, it will be very slow and not meet the requirements. We must decentralize more strongly. That is the common spirit of the Party Central Committee, the National Assembly and the Government at present," Mr. Dung emphasized.

According to the Minister of Planning and Investment, the Central Government, the National Assembly and the Government focus on playing the role of controlling, creating, strengthening and perfecting environmental institutions and clarifying responsibilities, results in cutting and simplifying administrative procedures; reducing asking and giving, reducing "your rights, my rights", reducing pushing and avoiding.

Regarding the expansion of national key projects, according to Mr. Dung, the national key criteria established in 1997 was 17,000 billion VND, and have not been revised for 27 years. Meanwhile, the scale of our economy has increased 10 times compared to 2000, and 2.5 times compared to 2013.

According to him, if the scale of an important national project is kept at 20,000 billion VND as some delegates mentioned, it may be suitable at the present time but may not be suitable in a few years.

"To ensure stability, I would like to ask the National Assembly to keep the level of 30,000 billion VND as appropriate. This is in line with reality, increasing decentralization to lower levels, to the Government or localities, and the National Assembly to focus on making major policy decisions for the country," said Mr. Dung.

"Opening must be manageable, not widespread leading to waste"

According to Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung, it is estimated that there will be 40 projects over 10,000 billion VND and 30 projects over 30,000 billion VND. With 30 projects over 30 trillion VND in a term of the National Assembly, it is already large and many, but if it is reduced to 20,000 billion VND, this number will increase even more.

Regarding the issue of land clearance separation, according to Mr. Dung, this is a very difficult story and will also be a step forward.

According to him, previously there were only two steps, investment preparation and project implementation. Now it is divided into three steps, investment preparation, project preparation and project implementation. Thus, the site clearance stage lies in project preparation.

"If we separate all three steps, we will know where the cause lies and who is responsible. Thus, we will separate site clearance and do it first, in parallel with investment procedures. Once the investment procedures are completed, they can be implemented immediately, instead of having to complete the investment decision before doing site clearance. This is a very big reform," said Mr. Dung.

The Minister of Planning and Investment also agreed with the delegates that strict regulations must be in place in the spirit of flexibility and openness, but must be manageable and controllable, not widespread, leading to "this consequence", "that consequence", loss and waste.