Focal acceleration for maximum growth

At the regular meeting of Binh Duong provincial People's Committee in June 2023, Vo Van Minh, Deputy Secretary of the provincial Party Committee and Chairman of the provincial People's Committee asked the departments and agencies to focus on basically solving the problems of congestion, obstacles, and the problems that businesses and people are having with the spirit of speeding up, taking advantage of time, and concentrating resources to complete the task for the remaining 6 months and the whole year of 2023.

Vo Van Minh, Deputy Secretary of the provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the provincial People's Committee speaks at the regular meeting of the provincial People's Committee in June 2023. Photo: Ngoc Thanh

Targets met and exceeded

In the first 6 months of 2023, the provincial People's Committee focused on directing the implementation of the socio-economic development plan persisting in the goal of maintaining macroeconomic stability, controlling inflation, prioritizing promoting growth, and ensuring major balances of the economy with focus on removing obstacles for production and business operations, promoting economic recovery and development, coordinating research and implementation of transport projects connecting and linking regions, speeding up the implementation and disbursement of public investment capital resources among others.

In order to avoid low disbursement of public investment resources affecting socio-economic development in the area, the province has proposed a series of solutions and drastically urged disbursement from the beginning of the year. However, the progress of implementation and disbursement of public investment capital was low compared to the plan.

In the first six months of 2023, the gross domestic product (GRDP) increased by 3.76% over the same period in 2022. The industrial production index was estimated to increase by 2.65%; attracting domestic investment reached VND 35,302 billion; foreign investment attraction reached USD 943 million; total retail sales of goods and services was estimated at VND 151,240 billion, increasing by 13% over the same period; total budget revenue was estimated at VD 31,550 billion, gaining by 48% of the estimate assigned by the provincial People's Council and the Prime Minister; total budget expenditure was estimated at VND 7,330 billion, gaining by 24% of the estimate; export turnover was estimated at USD 15.1 billion, declining by 17.4% over the same period; import turnover was estimated at USD 10.76 billion, declining by 14.7% over the same period.

Making general assessment of the achieved results, Vo Van Minh emphasized that the situation in the first 6 months of 2023 took place in harsh conditions with more challenges than advantages and opportunities. The provincial People's Committee has forecasted and assessed the situation from the last months of 2022, so it has focused on directing and working with departments, branches and localities to thoroughly grasp the task of troubleshooting related to land, investment and business procedures, administrative procedure reforms, support for production and business, promotion of commodity exports, etc. Up to now, 19 out of 35 targets have been met or exceeded in the annual plan.

Key traffic projects deployed

For more sustainable development, Binh Duong is focusing on investing in key transport routes within the lifeline of the province and the region; thereby, creating momentum for economic development, meeting two major goals of relieving traffic pressure on the route and preparing for the upcoming urban development of the province.

According to Nguyen Anh Minh, Director of the Department of Transport, the province is keeping on to coordinate with relevant localities and units to research and propose to implement investment procedures for Vanh Dai 3 and Vanh Dai 4 routes. , Ho Chi Minh City - Chon Thanh expressway, to speed up the implementation of the National Highway 13 project, the Bac Tan Uyen - Phu Giao - Bau Bang routes, to build a list of traffic projects prioritized for investment with public investment capital in 2021-2025 and after 2025, to do researches on and invest in upgrading, renovating and building new locations connecting with Thu Duc city of Ho Chi Minh city, to agree on traffic connection locations between Tan Uyen city, Di An city of Binh Duong province and localities of Dong Nai province.

Accordingly, the Vanh Dai 3 project in Ho Chi Minh city of about 26.6km long through Binh Duong province is expected to start on June 28, 2023. For the project of upgrading and expanding National Highway 13, the province proposes to strive for completion by the end of 2023. Along with that, Binh Duong are urgently focusing on completing compensation and clearance work in the fourth quarter of 2023 to start 2 highway projects of Ho Chi Minh City - Chon Thanh and Vanh Dai 4 - Ho Chi Minh city in early 2024.

Decisively implemented solutions

Nineteen out of 35 major socio-economic-environmental-urban indicators have been so far achieved by over 50% of the plan and exceeded the annual plan. Total social development investment capital increased by 10.3% over the same period. Although the disbursement rate of public investment capital was lower than the same period last year, the disbursed capital was nearly VND 800 billion higher. However, 2 of the indicators under the growth rate of import-export turnover dropped sharply over the same period. The provincial People's Committee will focus on directing and have specific solutions in each month and quarter in the last 6 months of the year to strive to complete all 35 set targets.

In the context of the export market facing difficulties; and, in order to achieve the set target in 2023, Binh Duong has tried a myriad of solutions. In this regard, the Chairman of the provincial People's Committee directed departments and branches to strengthen contact and work directly with each associations and enterprises in each project to promptly remove obstacles. Solutions are looked keenly into to open up and stimulate consumer demand to contribute to the consumption of goods because enterprises in the province have difficulties in export markets. Regulating and ensuring stable power sources for production and daily life are focused on. The expansion of industrial parks and investments in new industrial clusters as planned are accelerated. The policy of relocating enterprises from the southern localities to industrial parks and clusters in the northern localities is refined.

In the last 6 months of the year, the province focuses on implementing the Government's direction and the central guidelines from the socio-economic tasks in 2023 to recent guidelines to concretize and organize the implementation of the determination to achieve specified target. The province also requires all levels, sectors and units to firmly grasp the situation, analyze, forecast and develop economic growth scenarios for the third quarter and the whole year of 2023 to apply appropriate solutions to strongly promote economic activities and growth.

Binh Duong is focusing on investing in key and lifeline transport routes to motivate investment attraction

In order to successfully implement the goals and tasks of socio-economic development and national defense and security in 2023, the Chairman of the provincial People's Committee proposed that all levels and branches should make greater efforts and show determination in directing and controlling activities, taking the initiatives to closely coordinate and promote the achieved results with advantage-taking of all resources and opportunities and focus on supporting enterprises in production, business and socio-economic development.

Reported by Ngoc Thanh – Translated by Vi Bao