Groups of solutions for economic recovery considered and decided on at the third session of 10th Provincial People's Council

On Dec 7, the third session of the 10th Provincial People's Council was officially opened. This meeting focused on assessing the situation and results of the implementation of Resolution of the Provincial People's Council on socio-economic development, national defense and security in 2021, and set out key tasks, solutions for economic recovery in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides, the meeting also considered and decided on other important local issues. In order to better understand the agenda discussed at the meeting, Binh Duong Newspaper had an interview with Nguyen Truong Nhat Phuong, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Council.

Leaders and delegates of the Provincial People's Council visit and give gifts to people having difficult circumstances affected by the Covid-19.

- Ma'am, could you generalize about the meeting agenda of the third session?

- The third session is a regular meeting at the end of a year, at this meeting, the Provincial People's Council focus on some main issues: Evaluation and discussion of the situation and results of socio-economic development targets, national defense and security in 2021, set out direction and tasks in 2022. In particular, the meeting focused on discussing and proposing solutions to maintain a safe and effective "new normal" to recover socio-economic development, well solve and create employments, care for and improve people's lives. Performing its function of deciding important local issues, the Provincial People's Council discussed, considered and approved draft resolutions on finance - budget, public investment, such as: Regulations on public property management; decentralization of revenue sources, spending tasks, percentages of revenue distribution among local government budgets at all levels; allocation norms of recurrent expenditure estimates of local budgets in 2022; medium-term public investment plan for the 2021-2025 period; adjusting the policy of some key public investment projects of the province; prescribe fees, service prices.

In particular, the Provincial People's Council will promulgate a number of specific regimes and policies to ensure social security and order at the grassroots level, such as: Support regime for households newly escaping from poor in the province; support medical and pharmacy students in training; support regime for part-time police officers, traffic incident-handling mobile forces and 113 semi-full-time forces in the province... At the same time, the meeting also asked questions about issues of great concern to voters; perform human resource tasks to consolidate the entire machine of People's Council and People's Committee.

- Voters pay attention to watching the question-and-answer session of the meeting, could you tell us about the preparation of this content?

- In the spirit of continuous improvement, the third meeting continued to improve, perform well the Q&A session, ensuring a straightforward and constructive debate in order to share difficulties of branches and levels, well solve the existing problems that are of concern to the society. The Standing Committee of Provincial People's Council asked the Provincial People's Council to decide on three groups of questions and answers, including:

The first group of questions was  the work of ensuring safety in disease prevention and control, and the quality of teaching and learning in the new situation. Members of the Provincial People's Committee, Director of Department of Education and Training answered queries at the meeting. The second group of questions was about the guarantee of supporting conditions for enterprises to resume production and business in the new situation. Members of the Provincial People's Committee, Director of Department of Industry and Trade, and Management Board of Provincial Industrial Parks answered the question. The third group of questionable issues was the effectiveness of state management of housing for workers and construction order management in the province. Members of the Provincial People's Committee, Director of Department of Construction answered the questions. The questioning session was broadcast live at 3pm on December 7 and in the morning of December 8.

- At this meeting, what opinions did specialized committees and delegations have about the implementation results of Resolution of the Provincial People's Council on the socio-economic development tasks in 2021, ma'am?

- Regarding the assessment of the socio-economic and national defense social security in 2021, through the verification of the committees and discussions of the delegations, some basic items were recorded: 2021 was a year of special significance, the first year of five-year socio-economic development plan 2021-2025 and Resolution of the 11th Provincial Party Congress. In first months of the year, the province focused on the deputy election of the 15th National Assembly and People's Councils at all levels 2021-2026, at the same time ensuring the "dual goal" of socio-economic development and disease prevention control.

From the beginning of July 2021, the Covid-19 broke out strongly and quickly, the province had to implement social distancing, the economy was severely affected, production and business activities were suspended, people's health was threatened, people's daily life faced many difficulties. However, the concentration of leadership and drastic direction of the Provincial Party Committee, the flexible management of the Provincial People's Committee and the efforts of all levels and branches, the assistance and support of businesses and people as well as the support of the Central and other localities for Binh Duong contributed to effectively controlling the disease, protecting the health and lives of people; social, production and business activities have been resumed based on safe and flexible adaptation; completed the socio-economic development plan to the highest possible level, many key targets have been met and exceeded, a number of targets have not been achieved as planned, but still at a higher level compared to the previous year.

Namely, the province's gross domestic product (GRDP) increased by 2.79%, this is a low growth rate compared to the plan, but in the pandemic context, this growth rate is good. Domestic investment attracted more than 72,000 billion VND of registered capital for business (up 8.3%), foreign investment attracted more than 2 billion USD (exceeding 14.9% target); State budget revenue is estimated at 61,200 billion VND, reaching 104% of the estimate assigned by the Provincial People's Council…

In parallel with the implementation of "dual goal", during the Covid-19 outbreak, the province urgently issued 7 specific policies to support some groups affected by the pandemic, took care of social security, protected people's lives, and contributed to the effective disease prevention and control. In addition, the province well coordinated with other provinces and cities to send workers back to their hometown to avoid the disease and welcome workers back to Binh Duong in order to stabilize production in the new situation.

Regarding education branch, despite the complicated and prolonged Covid-19 during the year, education and training in the province continued to achieve many good results, ensured the completion of programs in this school year; rate of high school graduates ranked first in the country. During the time of online learning, many policies and programs to support tuition fees and online learning equipment were implemented in a timely manner, contributing to sharing difficulties and providing material and spiritual support to poor students. The education and training authority also safely organized the vaccinations and prepare school facilities for face-to-face teaching according to the schedule, to ensure the safety of students as returning to school.

National defense and social order security in the province was secured and stabilized, the enlistment of citizens reached 100% of the assigned targets, ensured both quantity and quality. Traffic safety had good changes, three criteria were reduced. Fire fighting prevention continued to be enhanced.

Those are some of assessments and comments of the committees and delegations of the Provincial People's Council on the socio-economic situation, national defense and security in 2021. At the meeting, delegates of the Provincial People's Council will continue to discuss and evaluate more deeply, as a solid basis to vote and approve the socio-economic development plan 2022, and propose effective solutions to successfully implement the next-year plan.

- Thank you so much!

Reported by Ho Van - Translated by Ngoc Huynh