The Prime Minister talks about the 'most persistent and worrying' issue and how to solve the question 'where is the money?'

đầu tư công - Ảnh 1. — Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh - Photo: National Assembly

Expressing gratitude and being moved by the responsible contributions of National Assembly deputies during the past two days of discussion, the Prime Minister said that although the past five years have had more difficulties and challenges than opportunities and advantages, the economy has been strong enough to withstand external shocks.

This has been proven to stabilize the macro economy, control inflation, promote growth, and ensure major balances of the economy.

At the same time, people's lives improved and the happiness index increased by 39 levels, national defense and security potential was strengthened, there were weapons products with Vietnamese brands, and the armed forces were built straight to modernity.

"There has never been so much social security" - he said and recalled that during the COVID-19 pandemic, support for 68 million people with 1.1 quadrillion VND, equivalent to 17% of the country's GDP. This is a great effort, a valuable achievement in a difficult context, when we are self-reliant, self-reliant, strategically autonomous, to be confident, create momentum, create force to enter a new era.

Removing a series of obstacles in arranging and implementing public investment projects

At the same time, this term we also have to resolve many backlogs. For example, in the electricity sector, 12 projects have been losing money for a long time, 4 weak banks and SCB, nearly 3,000 projects have been classified according to authority. However, we have built infrastructure with 3,000km of highways and 1,700km of sea routes.

The government also resolved the backlog of projects, problems, and ineffective investments that caused the ICOR index to increase. For example, energy projects with a scale of up to several billion USD, such as the Block B gas project that has lasted for 20 years, the O Mon Thermal Power Center, etc., have been reinvested and restructured to have more resources.

Regarding the concerns of delegates about the slow disbursement of public investment capital, the Prime Minister acknowledged that this is "the most persistent and worrying problem". The question is why do people know but not do anything, and do it but it is still slow?

According to the Prime Minister, this term public investment has allocated resources of 3.4 quadrillion VND, an increase of 55% compared to the previous term. However, it has been reduced to 4,760 projects compared to the previous 10,000 projects, helping us invest in the Mekong Delta expressway system.

“When I first came (to the Mekong Delta provinces - PV), there were provincial party secretaries here, we discussed our determination to do it, but the first most difficult problem was where the money was and we have arranged the resources to do it” - the Prime Minister said and added that many expressways in the North and Central regions, investments in ports, airports, and railways are also being implemented.

This result creates one of the three growth drivers: investment, consumption, and export. Accordingly, except for the year 2021 when the COVID-19 pandemic only increased by 2.55%, the remaining 4 years saw an average growth of 7.2%, exceeding the target of 6.5-7%.

In times of difficulty and risk, there must be an order of priority to ensure financial security.

According to the Prime Minister, we need to see this as a positive thing so we can confidently do it.

He said that this also had the contribution of the National Assembly, which was to remove the institutional barriers. Because the most difficult thing was to clear the land and resettle the people, but at the same time, they had to carry out new projects to clear the land and resettle the people, while it took time to carry out the projects. Therefore, after three times the Government submitted to the National Assembly, this problem was resolved.

Along with that, issues are gradually resolved such as land, decentralization, resource allocation, improving enforcement capacity and strengthening supervision and inspection.

At the beginning of his term, he persuaded provinces such as Dak Lak, An Giang, Thai Binh, Ninh Binh, Binh Phuoc… to assign him work, but the provinces were hesitant because they had never done a big project before. However, the provinces did well, made efforts to implement and now created vital routes.

In addition, the Government has also removed obstacles related to capital transfer. Obstacles such as capital from one locality cannot be given to another locality, local capital cannot be used to build central roads, according to him, are incorrect perceptions, because the project belongs to the nation, to the people.

Furthermore, there are also difficulties in implementation due to storms, floods, and natural disasters.

He shared that he often goes to urge the implementation of projects, but also has to share with the locality that there are times when they are focusing on preventing, responding to and overcoming natural disasters, so they cannot speed up progress.

Regarding the viewpoint that the revenue and expenditure estimates are not accurate, the Prime Minister said that the implementation principle is to ensure adequate revenue and expenditure, national financial security, increase investment for development, and ensure social security. Therefore, if the calculation is not careful, it will lead to the issuance of resolutions to stop projects, like in the previous term, or the risk of affecting national financial security.

Therefore, the Prime Minister believes that in the context of many challenges, it is impossible to achieve all goals at the same time. There is a risk of imbalance in revenue and expenditure, and a high deficit, so there must be an order of priority to ensure national financial security and effective use of the budget.

Basis for achieving double-digit growth target

Regarding the 2026 mission direction, he emphasized that the Government proposed a growth rate of 10% or more as a basis to achieve two strategic growth targets of the 100th anniversary of the Party's founding and the 100th anniversary of the country's founding, with the national tradition of "in difficulty comes wisdom".

“So is there a basis for this?” - The Prime Minister asked and affirmed that we have a basis, which is the strength of the nation. Development is based on three important factors: people, nature, and cultural and historical traditions.

That is to improve human capacity in terms of morality, intelligence, physical strength, and aesthetics, focusing on implementing resolutions on education, health care, etc.

With nature, we have land, forests, sky, sea, underground, energy and promote the cultural and historical values of the nation.

Focusing on investing in people, exploiting space, the sky and sea, making satellite internet, building subways, underground cables, energy projects... based on science and technology, innovation and digital transformation, mobilizing resources and strength from people and businesses with the spirit of a creative State, pioneering businesses, public-private partnership, and happy people.

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Source: https://tuoitre.vn/thu-tuong-noi-ve-van-de-dai-dang-tran-tro-nhat-va-viec-giai-quyet-cau-hoi-tien-dau-20251030171823805.htm