Hai Duong determined to achieve 8% growth rate (*)

>>Hai Duong leaders elected

Mr. Pham Xuan Thang, Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the provincial People's Council, delivers the closing speech

After two working days with a democratic, urgent, and highly responsible spirit of the participants, all contents and programs set for the first session of the 17th People's Council of Hai Duong province (2021 – 2026 tenure) were successfully completed on June 30 afternoon.

At the session, deputies were elected to key positions in the provincial People's Council and Committee, namely chairman of the provincial People's Council, chairman of the provincial People's Committee, vice chairmen of the provincial People's Committee, members of the provincial People's Committee, heads and deputy heads of boards under the provincial People's Council, and people's jurors of the provincial People's Court for the 2021 – 2026 tenure with high numbers of votes of confidence.

At the session, the provincial People's Council discussed and unanimously voted seven resolutions on confirmation of the results of the election of deputies to the provincial People's Council, People's Committee, and People's Court; a resolution on the number and structure of boards under the 17th provincial People's Council; and 12 resolutions on the results of implementing socio-economic development tasks in the first half, key measures and tasks for the second half of 2021, and issues related to socio-economic development and activities of the provincial People's Council in the new tenure.

In the context of complicated developments of Covid-19 still affecting the national socio-economic development negatively and the fulfillment of the objectives the provincial authorities set for 2021 directly, through discussion, the members of the provincial People's Council strongly agreed to the postponement of adjusting socio-economic development targets and plans for 2021 and were unanimous in the growth scenario for the last six months of the year.

Accordingly, only when the growth rate scores two digits of 11.86% in both third and fourth quarters will the target of an 8% growth rate for the whole year be achieved.

Therefore, the provincial People's Council assigned the provincial People's Committee to focus on leadership and direction with a proactive, creative, and drastic spirit and "five clear" rule to accelerate economic development, striving to meet the target of an 8% growth rate for the whole year. This is the most important political task of the province in the second half of the year with the following main tasks and measures:

Firstly, it is necessary to proactively, drastically, and regularly take measures against Covid-19; absolutely neither be neglectful and subjective nor let the epidemic re-emerge; and consider this the most important and top measure to ensure safe economic development.

Anti-epidemic measures should be flexibly applied to meet the dual goal of epidemic fighting and economic development with the motto "Economy for health and health for economy."

At the same time, resources should be gathered to purchase and administer vaccines to about one million people, with priority given to workers at enterprises, especially in industrial zones and clusters, and laborers in service industries, especially such services as banking, travel, catering, commerce, accommodation, and transport.

Secondly, reality in the past years and the first half of 2021 clearly indicates that the main impetuses of the provincial growth are industrial production, construction, and services, especially industrial production.

Because of prolonged negative impacts of Covid-19, enterprises are facing a lot of difficulties in operation, especially those in the service sector. Thus, the provincial People's Committee as well as authorities at all levels needs to work out very specific measures to focus on solving the difficulties to help the enterprises restore production and business safely in the epidemic condition.

Chairmen of People's Committees at provincial, district, city, and provincial town levels should organize dialogues with businesses in the spirit of "accompanying enterprises" to share and remove difficulties of businesses, especially those in the service sector.

Thirdly, agricultural production and new-style rural building should be further promoted.

Regarding agricultural production, it is necessary to intensify development towards green growth and application of digital transformation, develop hi-tech and organic agriculture, attach special importance to measures to improve the value of agricultural and commodity production; and select, honor, propagandize, and promote the trade of 10 most typical agricultural products of Hai Duong.

Fourthly, site clearance should be drastically focused on to carry out key works and projects of the province, industrial zones and clusters, and big urban areas with determination to commence a number of key traffic projects in the fourth quarter to contribute to increasing the value of the construction sector.

Fifthly, district and specialized planning should be drastically accelerated to complete the planning for Hai Duong province with a vision to 2050, which Party Committees and authorities should consider as their most important task and strive to comply with the schedule to satisfy the provincial development requirements in the new period.

Sixthly, the investment and business environment should be strongly improved; the provincial competitiveness in the 2021 – 2025 period should be heightened; and external, investment promotion and attraction activities should be effectively organized.

Difficulties and obstacles in documents, procedures, and site clearance for key projects in the locality should be removed.

The PCI ranking should be increased by at least five places, and the time to process procedures for investment in a project should be shortened by 50% or more.

The implementation of the resolution on digital transformation should be stepped up, three sub-projects of the E-government and Smart Urban Project should be urgently and effectively carried out. Digital transformation should be considered as a tool, a means to help us speed up and create a new motivation for growth.

Seventhly, it is necessary to focus on measures against the loss of budget revenue; strive to increase budget revenue by at least 10% compared to the plan; flexibly, economically, and effectively manage the budget; and save recurrent expenditure to have resources to buy vaccines and spend on investment and development.

Revenue from land should be proactively generated to increase public investment capital; the Land Development Fund should be put into effective use; a number of State-managed real estates should be auctioned to obtain revenue for the budget; and district, city, and provincial town authorities should be encouraged to act as investors in auctioning residential and urban areas to increase revenue for the budget for development and investment.

Eighthly, together with accelerating the implementation of economic development tasks, it is necessary to pay attention to well performing the tasks of national defense, security, and maintenance of political security and social order and safety and intensify the fighting against crimes which have increased because of Covid-19.

At the same time, focus should be put on resolving inadequacies freshly arising in culture, society, and environment, such as a lack of teachers in some grades, difficult lives of laborers in boarding areas, treatment of domestic waste in rural areas, and the more and more urgent environment in rural areas.

(Excerpts from the closing speech of Mr. Pham Xuan Thang, Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the provincial People's Council, at the first session of the 17th provincial People's Council)
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* Titled by the Hai Duong online newspaper