This morning (August 3), the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee held the 5th meeting of the Advisory Council to implement Resolution 98 of the National Assembly on special and outstanding mechanisms for the development of Ho Chi Minh City.

Clearing key projects

Reporting at the conference, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Institute for Development Studies Truong Minh Huy Vu stated that after 1 year of implementing Resolution 98, the city has issued a significant number of policies.

This is the premise that opens up many prospects for the future in solving bottlenecks, bottlenecks, as well as the problem of solving the city's sustainable development.

Specifically, up to now, the City People's Council has issued 34 resolutions in areas such as: investment management; finance - state budget; urban management, environmental resources; organization of the apparatus of the Ho Chi Minh City and Thu Duc City governments, establishment of the Department of Food Safety; management of science, technology, innovation, etc.

Besides, according to Mr. Vu, the city has decentralized some contents to departments, branches and localities... helping the work operate faster than before.

However, according to Mr. Vu, the application of Resolution 98 still has many limitations, requiring stronger breakthrough solutions and support from relevant ministries and branches for better results.

Supplement planning of strategic locations for TOD implementation

Chairing the meeting, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Vo Van Hoan highly appreciated the results after one year of implementing Resolution 98.

However, he said that there is still a lot of work that has not been done or not done enough due to a passive mentality of "waiting for work to come before doing it".

“Resolution 98 gives us superior mechanisms, which are ahead of the curve for piloting. But we are passive, not preparing in advance, but waiting until work arises before doing it. Therefore, the results achieved are still not as expected by the city,” Mr. Hoan noted.

Mr. Hoan gave an example, the resolution allows the city to pilot the construction of TOD (urban development model oriented towards high-capacity public transport) along metro lines and Ring Road 3. But the departments and branches have not yet researched or supplemented the planning, so there is still nothing to implement.

“We have talked about this issue, but forgot about it during the process, just researching some non-specific TOD model that has not been seen in the planning,” Mr. Hoan noted.

Thereby, he requested the Department of Planning and Investment to coordinate with the Department of Transport to orient infrastructure development space with additional planning of strategic locations to implement TOD.

When there is a planning strategy, the city will be transparent to attract strategic investors or mobilize resources from society.

Dr. Tran Du Lich, Chairman of the Advisory Council for the implementation of Resolution 98, emphasized that it is necessary to identify the land fund for TOD implementation for auction and build the capital source for implementation. According to him, the land use fee auction for each project should be for that project and should not be mixed into the general budget.

Reporting at the conference, the representative of the Department of Planning and Investment admitted that the TOD model is planned along the metro lines. However, on metro line 1 which is in the basic completion stage, no TOD project has been implemented, although there are still more than 550 hectares of public land along this line.

"The Department has presented and advised the City People's Committee on this issue, but no investors or enterprises have registered or proposed the project," said a representative of the Department of Planning and Investment.

According to architect Ngo Viet Nam Son, implementing TOD requires identifying three issues: innovation in thinking, organization, and building a legal corridor as a basis.

He believes that implementing TOD requires thinking according to the market economy, and harmonizing the interests of the people, businesses, and the state. Implementation must be synchronous, meaning that departments and branches coordinate smoothly. Each department and branch does a part of the work, but must have a commitment to the completion schedule.

“We have 8 metro lines in the future to implement TOD. But first, we need to complete and quickly put into operation metro line 1, to regain trust, attract people… then it will spread to the remaining lines in the future.

Besides, implementing TOD requires a legal corridor as a basis for leaders to be able to do it without fear or fear of making mistakes," Mr. Son expressed.

Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City: With Resolution 98, working in 1 year is more effective than in a whole term . Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai affirmed that after nearly 1 year of implementing Resolution 98 of the National Assembly, the results achieved are more than in a whole term (5 years) compared to the previous special Resolution 54.

Thu Duc City has many advantages in developing the TOD model . Thu Duc has 8 out of 11 elevated stations on the Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien Metro line; is planned to become the economic, scientific, technical and creative urban center in the east of Ho Chi Minh City, with synchronous infrastructure...