Review and select suitable house models for people in flood-affected areas

Regular Government press conference in November. Photo: QUANG PHUC

At the press conference, Deputy Minister of Finance Nguyen Duc Chi said that natural disasters affect the growth of damaged provinces as well as the overall growth. At the meeting, the Government carefully assessed this issue and directed the implementation of solutions.

Incomplete estimates show that natural disasters caused the GRDP growth rate in the fourth quarter of Hue City, Dak Lak , Gia Lai, Khanh Hoa... to decrease by about 1%, the whole year to decrease by about 0.2-0.3% and reduced the country's GDP growth in the fourth quarter by about 0.1%.

The Government has allocated 6,800 billion VND to support natural disasters, about 550 billion VND in supplies, rice... with the view of leaving no one behind. In December, the Government continued to allocate from the national reserve fund to support people in disaster areas, restore production, and stabilize life.

Deputy Minister of Finance Nguyen Duc Chi speaks. Photo: QUANG PHUC

Regarding tax and fee solutions to support disaster areas, the Deputy Minister said that in designing policies, the Government always has policies to reduce and defer taxes to support people and businesses that have suffered unavoidable losses due to natural disasters, in terms of taxes, fees, income tax, etc. The Prime Minister and the Government have directed ministries, branches and localities to continue to urgently overcome the consequences and be ready to respond to natural disasters and storms and floods.

A representative of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment said that international organizations supported Vietnam with about 21 million USD to overcome the consequences of natural disasters.

At the press conference, the selection of house models to ensure proactive adaptation and prevention of storms and floods is becoming more and more extreme. Chief of Office of the Ministry of Construction Nguyen Tri Duc said that since 2014, the Prime Minister has issued a policy to support poor households in building houses to prevent and avoid storms and floods in the Central region, applied in 13 provinces and cities in the North Central region and the Central Coast (before the merger). On that basis, localities have researched and designed at least three house models, some localities have up to 6-8 models. The Ministry of Construction has also researched and implemented a system of designing safe houses to prevent and combat natural disasters and has announced 176 models that can be used immediately...

Through practical implementation, the houses following the above mentioned sample designs are safe and resistant to storms and floods. However, in the face of storms and floods occurring in most localities across the country with much more complex and dangerous levels, the Chief of Office of the Ministry of Construction believes that there is a need for new storm and flood-prevention house designs that are suitable for the actual situation.

Chief of Office of the Ministry of Construction Nguyen Tri Duc. Photo: QUANG PHUC

Therefore, the Ministry of Construction has requested the People's Committees of the provinces to direct the Departments of Construction and relevant agencies to coordinate with the National Institute of Architecture (Ministry of Construction) to review the terrain characteristics of each region, to apply and select design models according to the instructions, closely linked to construction planning, rural planning, regional planning, ensuring long-term safety, not just immediate handling.

Regarding the proposal to build infrastructure projects for the Central region to respond to natural disasters, Mr. Nguyen Tri Duc said that, based on the national master plan and regional and local planning, the Ministry of Construction has planned transport infrastructure. Specifically, there are 11 expressways with a length of nearly 1,500 km, 24 main national highways with a length of over 4,400 km, helping to connect important economic corridors. Regarding air routes, the Central and Central Highlands regions have 14 airports. Along with that, the planning includes 14 seaports; 1,332 km of the North-South railway line. Notably, the Ministry of Construction is studying to add 2 more airports to the planning of the Central region to strengthen emergency support and rescue work in the Central and Central Highlands regions.

Up to now, the Central and Central Highlands regions have completed the investment of about 1,193 km of highways, and are expected to complete about 1,466 km by the end of 2025. The Central and Central Highlands regions have exploited 11/14 planned airports, and are implementing investment in 2 airports. A number of maritime routes, waterways and ports have also been invested in according to the plan, put into use to promote the efficiency of investment and exploitation.

However, according to the Chief of Office of the Ministry of Construction, in the face of increasingly unpredictable changes in the climate on earth, with increasingly severe and complex developments, in the work of planning, establishing and approving investment projects, there needs to be a change in approach, model and calculation method to ensure scientific and practical suitability.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Construction proposed that the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment should soon change the response scenario, as a basis for industries and fields to update and propose climate change adaptation solutions suitable to the specific characteristics of each field.

The Ministry of Construction will organize the adjustment of the National Sectoral Planning for 5 sectors and update the latest climate change and sea level rise scenarios to prepare a strategic environmental assessment, immediately after the National Assembly passes the resolution on the National Master Plan according to new socio-economic development targets.

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