Determination of Covid-19 epidemic prevention and control to stablize production and business operations

This is the guiding opinion of Mr. Vo Van Minh, Deputy Secretary of Binh Duong provincial Party Committee cum Chairman of the provincial People's Committee at the meeting in the afternoon of August 12 with Department of Planning and Investment (MPI) on the socio-economic development plan and resumed production and business operations in the last months of 2021.

Production operations in Dong A JSC. Photo: Xuan Thi

Efforts made to maintain growth

According to the report of Department of Planning and Investment, the Covid-19 epidemic is having a very strong and multidimensional impact on all socio-economic fields of the province. In July, although a number of socio-economic indicators decreased as compared to June and the same period, the results achieved in the first 6 months of the year still made important contributions to lay the foundation for the main targets of the province in 7 months to be increased over the same period.

In the first seven months of 2021, the index of industrial production (IIP) increased by 7.3% over the same period last year; the total retail sales of consumer goods and services increased by 7%; the export turnover was estimated at more than USD 20.3 billion, increasing by 43.5%; import turnover was estimated at USD15.85 billion, increasing by 43.7% over the same period; and, trade surplus was nearly USD 4.5 billion. Total state budget revenue was estimated at VND 41 trillion, increasing by 18.8% over the same period; total local budget expenditure was estimated at VND 7,600 billion, increasing by 2.2% over the same period; disbursed value of public investment capital was VND 2,578 billion, reaching 20.9% of the adjusted plan and 25.2% of the plan assigned by the central government. Accumulated in the first 7 months of 2021, the total capital of newly registered enterprises still increased (nearly 20%) and the number of enterprises registered to increase capital was very high (more than 83%) compared to the same period. Currently, the province has 3,239  enterprises with 270,733 employees registered to participate in production under the "3 on the spot" and "1 route, 2 destinations" options (in industrial parks, 42.6% of the number of enterprises and 53.4% ​​of the total number of employees participating in production).

Efforts made for the highest development

In the coming time, the complicated developments of the Covid-19 epidemic will continue to strongly affect all aspects and it is forecast that the province's socio-economic situation would continue to face many difficulties and challenges.

For enterprises, despite efforts to implement many solutions to avoid production disruption, the effectiveness of the solutions has not really been achieved as expected. Difficulties that businesses are continuing to face, especially labor shortages because workers have not returned to Binh Duong to work or businesses have to recruit new workers and take time to re-train to meet production needs would affect the ability to restore production and the target of industrial and service development in the last months of the year.

Mr. Mai Ba Truoc, Director of Department of Planning and Investment, said that in such context that a correct assessment of the situation of the province from the beginning of the year to now and the forecast for the whole year of 2021 would be an important basis for continuing to update the objective and comprehensive assessment to propose solutions for the last months of the year.

The impact of Covid-19 continues to be unpredictable on the province's socio-economic development in 2021. The Department has coordinated with related units to study common sources of forecast information on the socio-economic situation of Vietnam in 2021 and the results of the implementation in the first 7 months of Binh Duong to develop and propose 2 scenarios of  growth in the last months of the year..
“The realization of growth targets in the last months of 2021 mainly depends on the recovery of production and business operations of the enterprises. Accordingly, the effectiveness and duration of epidemic control will determine the stability of labor and the process of recovering businesses' operations and bringing the locality into a state of "new normal" in the post-lockdown period. Therefore, it is not recommended to adjust the socio-economic development plan (in 2021, the province aims to increase GRDP from 8.5 to 8.7% or more). This means accepting the high possibility of having to trade off for not accomplishing many planned goals in 2021, in order to keep the highest determination to mobilize the total strength of the entire people strata and political systems. The people and the business community unanimously strive to achieve each target and field at the highest level in difficult conditions," said Mr. Mai Ba Truoc.

Beforehand Covid-19 epidemic prevention and control

Discussing at the meeting, the functional sectors all said that from now until the end of the year, it has been forecast that there would still be many difficulties, but if early identification and good use of the potentials are in place, it would create a strong impetus for the province to accelerate economic development. In particular, the first important condition is to continue to carry out the prevention and control of the Covid-19 epidemic in the area with flexible direction and management measures to ensure a safe areas serving development.

Concluding the meeting, Mr. Vo Van Minh, Deputy Secretary of the provincial Party Committee cm Chairman of the provincial People's Committee agreed with the report on the socio-economic development plan and production and business restoration in the last months of 2021 of Department of Planning and Investment. Mr. Vo Van Minh emphasized that in the immediate future, the province determines that the prevention and control of Covid-19 is still the most important and urgent task, in which, the first task is the determination to control and repel the Covid-19 epidemic to  protect people's health and lives as paramount actions and at the same time to insist on dual goals.

In order to implement the socio-economic development plan and restore production and business operations in the last months of 2021, Mr. Vo Van Minh suggested that all levels, branches and localities should focus on implementing more quickly the prevention and control of Covid-19 epidemic. In particular, the role of Party committees and authorities is promoted and the entire political system in the province is mobilized to create consensus among the people, making the most of time and resources to prevent and control the Covid-19 epidemic according to the guidelines with the spirit of initiative, determination, flexibility, and creativity to perform the tasks. More speed in vaccination and researches on support policies for workers in enterprises that carry out "3 on-the-spot" production to reduce the financial burden on businesses to firmly protect the “blue zones” and gradually make some feasible areas "blue", to focus on vaccination in the immediate future to give priority to workers of enterprises to ensure safety for disease prevention and control and have an early demand for production of important and high-value goods, contributing to provide the supplying chains.

Reported by Ngoc Thanh - Translated by Vi Bao