Directive 27/CT-TTg to promote growth, sustainable development of Central Vietnam

DIRECTIVE

On solutions to promote growth and sustainable development of Central Vietnam

Central Vietnam consists of 14 provinces and centrally run cities, stretching from Thanh Hoa province to Binh Thuan province along the coastline of 1,900 km, and boasts great potential and advantages for the development of marine economy. The region has large infrastructure projects in which large investments are made, including 9 airports (5 international airports), 14 deep-water seaports (8 national complex and regional transshipment seaports), and 11 out of total 17 coastal economic zones of the whole country. It has recorded many important achievements, such as the gross regional domestic product (GRDP) growth rate of 7.62 percent during 2016-2018, contributing 19.28 percent to the whole country’s GDP in 2018. Its economic restructuring is positively underway with higher proportions of services and industry, local budget revenues attaining or exceeding the revenue estimates for the 2016-2018 period, improved business investment environment, greater attention paid to marine economy, and more importance attached to social affairs, environmental protection, health care, education and training, hunger eradication and poverty alleviation.

However, the region still encounters problems and limitations which need solutions to prevent them from becoming drawbacks for its development, such as its unstable growth driving force with weak role of the industry sector due to lack large production and trading, industrial processing and manufacturing projects; slow economic restructuring in many localities with unidentified priorities in sector development strategies; failure of a number of provinces and centrally run cities to identify their marine economic sectors based on their own advantages; lack of complete legal institutions for economic development of the central provinces as well as the whole region, particularly those for power decentralization, economic management and intra-regional connection; low quality of local human resources compared to market needs; failure of the key Central Vietnam economic region to play its role as the growth nucleus and locomotive to lead the regional economic development; unstable collection of budget revenues, particularly land use levy, construction lottery, taxes and charges which account for high proportions in total domestic revenues; poor transport infrastructure facilities connecting the region with the Central Highlands and between regional areas; low quality of the business environment and poor state management capacity of cadres, civil servants and public employees in many localities. In addition, the region is also facing other challenges, including environmental pollution, sustainable poverty alleviation, highlands-inhabited ethnic minority people and policy beneficiary families.

In order to create favorable conditions for Central Vietnam to bring into fullest play its potential and advantages for breakthrough and sustainable development, the Prime Minister requests the ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of government-attached agencies, and chairpersons of People’s Committees of the provinces and centrally run cities of Central Vietnam (below collectively referred to as ministries, sectors and localities) to concentrate on directing the implementation of the following solutions for the following objectives:

I. OBJECTIVES

1. To realize the strategy for sustainable development of marine economy in spirit of Resolution No. 36-NQ-TW dated October 22, 2018, on the five economic columns: (1) fisheries, particularly fishing, aquaculture and processing of aquatic products; (2) tourism, particularly sea and island tourism, and to tap the region’s tourism advantages; (3) seaports and logistics services; (4) manufacturing and processing industries associated with seaport advantages; and (5) renewable energies: wind power, solar power and other energies.

2. To continue synchronously implementing solutions related to regional connection and legal institutions for regional development as well as effective mechanisms for regional operation coordination, concentrating on formulating regional master plans of breakthrough nature to bring into full play local potential, rationally distribute resources and build legal institutions favorable for the regional development; and to continue investing in transport infrastructure facilities to connect the region with other regions and localities within the region.

3. To improve the business environment and competitiveness, create conditions for enterprises, cooperatives and business households to develop, particularly those operating in sectors with regional advantages such as seaports, airports, economic zones, tourism attractions, coastal urban centers, fish harbors, aquaculture, fisheries logistics service centers, tours for sea, history, culture, cultural and natural heritage lovers.

4. To intensify the forest protection and afforestation, and proactively respond to climate change, prevent and control natural disasters, sea level rise and salt water infiltration; to prevent, control and radically mitigate sea environment pollution; to take the lead in the minimization of plastic waste discharged into the ocean.

II. TASKS AND SOLUTIONS

1. Regarding mechanisms and policies

a/ The Ministry of Planning and Investment shall:

- Study and formulate special mechanisms and policies to create favorable conditions for Central Vietnam and key economic Central Vietnam region to develop sustainably; study and improve mechanisms for regional coordination and operation of the Council for the key economic region, ensuring this Council has real powers to work effectively and efficiently; study, improve and report to competent agencies on tentative zoning plans, taking into account traditional, historical, cultural, ethnical, economic connection and transport factors.

- Accelerate the formulation of the overall national master plan and regional master plan for the 2021-2030 period in accordance with the Planning Law; guide localities in further implementing master plans which remain effective; identify difficulties and problems and propose competent authorities to consider and promptly address them; coordinate with localities in stepping up the formulation of provincial master plans for the 2021-2030 period in accordance with the planning law.

- Promptly publicize data on gross domestic product of the provinces and centrally run cities in the region; to assume the prime responsibility for guiding methods of calculating and making statistics on marine economy and coastal areas for making uniform statistics for the whole country.

b/ The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment shall:

- Accelerate the formulation of the national master plan on oceanic space for the 2021-2030 period in accordance with the planning law.

- Improve legal institutions for sustainable development of marine economy, prioritizing the improvement of the legal framework and proposing solutions to improve the mechanism for general and uniform sea management; solve problems facing the land administration.

c/ People’s Committees of the provinces and cities in the region shall:

- Consider concentrating efforts on performing the tasks and implementing solutions specified in the Government’s resolutions on major tasks and solutions to implement annual socio-economic development plans and state budget estimates and Resolution 02/NQ-CP on further implementation of major task and solutions to improve the business environment and national competitiveness in 2019, with a vision toward 2021, as a key political task of their Party Committees and administration levels, departments, divisions, sectors, districts, towns, communes and wards for resolute performance; affirm the important role of private, state and cooperative economic sectors so that to give them a development boost; to take the initiative in reviewing and taking solutions to promptly remove difficulties encountered by production and business, thereby boosting growth and successfully implementing annual and five-year plans during 2016-2020.

- Stimulate the aspiration of the whole region and every locality to rise vigorously; renew the way of thinking, promote the spirit of self-reliance and identify local advantages for faster and sustainable growth, thus practically contributing to the realization of the development aspiration of the region and whole country.

- Reduce cases where land lessees are allowed to make one-off land use rental payments for whole land lease terms, requiring them to make annual land use rental payments in order to ensure stable budget revenues from land for the regional localities under the National Assembly’s Resolution 82/2019/HQ14 dated June 14, 2019, in the context of complicated developments of the realty market.

- Synchronously implement resolutions to ensure social security and increase incomes and improve living standards of local people suitable to different development periods; ensure that every local resident has an equal access to basic services and social welfare and enjoy favorable conditions for comprehensive development and community integration; effectively implement policies to support disadvantaged groups; synchronously, comprehensively and effectively implement poverty alleviation programs and projects; give opportunities to poor households to access land, credit, vocational training, employment and occupational change support policies; support and create conditions for poor households to develop their production and increase income to sustainably escape from poverty.

- Local Party Committees and administrations shall pay greater attention to the task of ensuring socio-political stability and properly carry out citizen reception and complaint and denunciation settlement, thereby maintaining security and social order; particularly, they shall perform well the task of corruption and waste prevention and control associated with the Party building and consolidation work, upholding the responsibility of heads to set examples as required by the Central Party Committee’s resolutions, and attach importance to building a clean and strong apparatus from the grassroots, saying no to negative practices and wholeheartedly serving the people.

- Renovate and reorganize the organizational structure of the political system toward compactness and effectiveness under the Central Party Committee’s Resolutions 18-NQ/TW and 19-NQ/TW to suit the socialist-oriented market economy institutions; to streamline state payrolls in association with restructuring, increasing quality of, and effectively using, the pool of cadres, civil servants and public employees; reduce regular expenditures and make recommendations on reforming salary policies; concentrate resources on performing tasks related to regional connections and response to climate change.

- Take the initiative in responding to climate change and sea level rise and preventing and controlling natural disasters and drought; protect the environment, conserve and sustainably develop oceanic biodiversity; enhance forest protection and intensify afforestation to increase the forest coverage in the region to top the country’s average level.

2. Regarding connections of sectors and fields

a/ The Ministry of Transport shall report to the Prime Minister in the first quarter of 2020 on operation of seaports in Central Vietnam and solutions to efficiently operate existing seaports and airports; investment plans to completely build the system of expressways in the region, coastal roads and roads connecting the central coastal provinces with the Central Highlands; and connection of existing railways with seaports.

b/ The Ministry of Industry and Trade shall prioritize the development of the network of logistics centers in the region, getting the best of advantages in geographical locations which are close to goods supply sources (industrial parks and ports) and customers; support and create favorable conditions for provinces and cities with potential to develop renewable energies (wind power and solar power).

c/ The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism shall report to the Prime Minister in the second quarter of 2020 on the implementation of the scheme on restructuring of tourism sector to develop into a spearhead economic sector after being approved by the Prime Minister under Decision 1685/QD-TTg of December 5, 2018, clearly stating results of the performance of such key tasks as building the tourism market information system, regulation on coordination of region-based tourist activities, models of management of national tourism zones; the development of the pool of lecturers and trainers in tourism; provision of support for development of community-based tourism; and solutions to enhance connectivity of tourist activities, aiming to better tap the tourism potential of the region.

d/ The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shall formulate the strategy for aquaculture at sea, evaluating potential and advantages of the provinces and cities in the region through 2030, with a vision toward 2050; consider the restructuring of forests and formation of forest economy; set orientations for aquaculture and aquatic product processing in a deep value chain, then report to the Prime Minister in November 2019.

e/ The Ministry of Information and Communications shall study and formulate mechanisms and policies for regional connection, linking and sharing of databases for developing and applying information technology, build digital administrations, e-administrations and smart cities to resolve intrinsic problems and increase competitiveness of the region, then report to the Prime Minister in the first quarter of 2020.

g/ The Ministry of Science and Technology shall

- Provide support to technology and science and technology enterprise incubation centers in universities, enterprises, economic zones, industrial parks and science towns in the provinces and cities in the region which may serve as nuclei for scientific and technological application and innovation activities.

- Concentrate on researching and applying new and high technologies to develop key products based on advantages of the region in agriculture, aquaculture, pharmaceutical materials and tourism.

h/ The Ministry of Education and Training and Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs shall guide and support the provinces and cities in the region in renovating and raising quality of vocation education, developing human resources, particularly high-quality human resources to meet the regional socio-economic development requirements in the context of the fourth industrial revolution.

i/ Provincial-level People’s Committees shall:

- Closely coordinate with the ministries and sectors in well carrying out activities of coordinating and linking the provinces and cities in the region under the Prime Minister’s Decision 941/QD-TTg dated June 25, 2015, Decision 2059/QD-TTg dated November 24, 2015, and Decision 2360/QD-TTg of December 22, 2015; promptly propose to the Government appropriate mechanisms and policies to address problems in the course of implementation thereof; continue organizing the implementation of the Political Bureau’s Resolution 39-NQ/TW on stepping up the socio-economic development and maintaining national defense and security in the northern Central Vietnam and central coast, and Conclusion 25-KL/TW on further implementation of Resolution 39-NQ/TW and the Prime Minister’s Decisions on establishment of the steering committee and coordinating team of, and regulation on operation coordination in, the key economic region, focusing on the following tasks:

+ Building modern coastal urban centers under master plans on coastal urban construction centered on the sea; concentrating on building coastal urban centers that have advantageous conditions to serve as a development driving force and become economic centers of sub-regions.

+ Further implementing the Government’s Decree 17/2018/ND-CP dated February 2, 2018, amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 67/2014/ND-CP dated July 7, 2014, on a number of policies to develop fisheries; Decree 89/2015/ND-CP dated October 7, 2015, amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 67/2014/ND-CP of July 7, 2014, and Decree 67/2014/ND-CP; organizing short-term training courses for fishermen; reviewing as soon as possible the implementation of the above decrees, and on that basis proposing mechanisms and solutions for the coming period in order to better meet practical requirements.

+ Strengthening regional and sub-regional connections and cooperative connections between the central provinces and the Central Highlands provinces for development; coordinating with the Central Highlands provinces in conserving and regulating freshwater sources; intensifying the coordination between localities inside and outside the region in the course of investment promotion, mobilization and distribution of resources and building of socio-economic infrastructure facilities; training, attracting and creating jobs for laborers; carrying out scientific research and technology transfer; formulating inter-provincial and inter-regional tourism programs and routes; providing information and building databases on the region’s socio-economic development to serve the forecasting work and coordinated environmental protection and response to climate change.

- Train human resources of high quality and rational sector structure; attach importance to training high-quality human resources, particularly for management and governance, science and technology, transport, services, tourism, processing and manufacturing, to meet governance and management, production and business requirements in the context of the fourth industrial revolution; intensify the training of human resources to meet needs of enterprises and the labor market and suit socio-economic development characteristics and objectives of the region; further step up the labor restructuring toward reducing the number of laborers in agriculture, forestry and fisheries and increasing the workforce in non-agricultural sectors to suit the economic development trend and quickly increase social labor productivity; review and reorganize the network of vocational education institutions; enhance cooperation between vocational education institutions and enterprises; synchronize vocational training with employment in the country and send workers abroad to work under contracts.

- Control and remedy environmental pollution and polluting sources in industrial parks and clusters, craft villages, river basins and production establishments that are likely to cause serious pollution; intensify examination and inspection and strictly handle violations in the environmental protection, especially in areas where environmental pollution is subject to public condemnation; and pay greater attention to urban development and urbanization in harmony with industrial development.

3. Regarding resources

a/ The Ministry of Planning and Investment shall assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with related agencies in, advising competent agencies on prioritizing the allocation of resources for building fundamental infrastructure facilities, coastal roads, regional key works, projects to mitigate drought and protect freshwater sources for sustainable development.

b/ The Ministry of Finance shall:

- Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with related agencies in, formulating tax and charge mechanisms and delegating management powers to the provinces and cities in the region depending on their development levels.

- Assume the prime responsibility for, and coordinate with the Ministry of Planning and Investment in studying and setting appropriate budget allocation and retention percentages in the new budget stabilization period for local budgets of the provinces and cities in the region correspondence to their budget contributions to the central budget, thereby creating resources for localities to increase their investment in technical and social infrastructure facilities; and formulate the regulation permitting localities to retain collected revenues for building basic research institutions and scientific research towns.

c/ The Ministry of Transport shall concentrate state resources on investing in and synchronizing socio-economic infrastructure, particularly key transport infrastructure facilities, in order to increase regional connections; coordinate with regional localities in calling upon investors to build expressways in the PPP form and making the best use of ODA sources and other lawful capital sources for infrastructure development; and combine transport infrastructure investment with urban development in an open and transparent manner in order to attract more investors.

d/ Provincial-level People’s Committees in the region shall:

- In the context of deeper international economic integration under CPTPP Agreement, EVFTA and EVIPA, create spatial conditions and provide resources and opportunities for the private sector to develop more conveniently; ensure that the private economic sector is equal before law and in competition and resource allocation with other economic sectors; honor prominent projects and enterprises that make considerable contributions while condemning and handling enterprises that breach business code of ethics; create opportunities for enterprises to access resources, cut down production and business expenses and reduce product costs, thereby creating an open, transparent and favorable environment for them; perform well the work of attracting, calling for and directing investment, adopting support policies toward sectors prioritized for development in different localities with different advantages and potential; renew mechanisms and policies to attract more and more financial resources from all economic sectors, especially idle capital from the population, for production and business development.

- Attract more foreign direct investment during the integration process and host in a selective manner projects with high and environment-friendly technologies and expected to create numerous jobs and generate high incomes for local people; renovate the work of foreign investment promotion with a view to focusing on foreign investment in sectors and fields with advantages and investors from the developed countries, while continuing to call upon investors that have invested in many localities; and encourage the startup and innovative spirit in all economic activities.

- Mobilize and efficiently use state capital for development of technical and social infrastructure facilities, human resources, science and technology, improvement of local health care and environmental protection, and implementation of national target programs; allocate budget funds for investing in important infrastructure works and projects in which foreign investment is hard to attract; intensify the promotion of investment in the public-private partnership (PPP) form, especially in transport sector, and bring into full play the region’s advantages in waterways transport; auction land use rights, especially in urban centers, in strict accordance with law in order to create resources for infrastructure investment and foundations for promoting regional connections, socio-economic development and convenient mass transit.

- Develop economic zones, hi-tech parks, high-added value processing and manufacturing industry zones and eco-industrial parks; invest in expanding airports, including international airports, with private sector’s investment in accordance with current regulations.

- Restructure the state budget under the Central Party Committee’s Resolution 07-NQ/TW dated November 18, 2016, and manage public debts in the direction of securing a safe and stable finance and contributing to stabilizing macro-economy; and intensify the mobilization, management, distribution and efficient use of financial resources for socio-economic development.

III. ORGANIZATION OF IMPLEMENTATION

1. The ministries, central agencies and provincial-level People’s Committees in Central Vietnam shall direct their attached agencies and units in performing the tasks specified in this Directive, taking responsibility before the Government and Prime Minister for implementation results, reviewing and reporting implementation results to the Ministry of Planning and Investment twice a year (before June 15 and December 15) for summary in reports of the Government and Prime Minister at the Government’s regular meetings in June and December every year. Other ministries and sectors shall closely coordinate with the provinces and cities in Central Vietnam and the key Central Vietnam economic region in promptly removing difficulties and creating favorable conditions for the region to develop.

2. Ministers, heads of ministerial-level agencies, heads of government-attached agencies and other central agencies, and chairpersons of the provinces and cities in Central Vietnam shall organize the implementation of this Directive.

Prime Minister

NGUYEN XUAN PHUC