Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh: Do not let the situation of "having money but not being able to spend it" happen

The conference was held directly at the Government Headquarters and online with 63 provinces and centrally run cities.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the conference. Photo: VNA

Attending the conference were Deputy Prime Ministers; Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies, Government agencies; representatives of Party and National Assembly agencies; representatives of the Supreme People's Court, the Supreme People's Procuracy , the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front; leaders of ministries and central agencies; leaders of provinces and centrally run cities; leaders of corporations, general companies, and state-owned commercial banks.

Speaking at the opening of the conference, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh emphasized that we are living in the historic months of April and May with a spirit of speed and boldness. However, the public investment sector is not speedy, but sluggish. Therefore, the Government Standing Committee convened a national conference to analyze what has been done well in public investment.

In the current context, we are renewing the three traditional growth drivers including investment, consumption, and export; promoting new growth drivers including science and technology, innovation, digital transformation, circular economy, knowledge economy, and drivers related to the private economy. While promoting new growth drivers has just begun, has not yet produced results, takes time, and has delays, we must make efforts to promote and consolidate traditional growth drivers.

However, currently, there are difficulties in consumption after the Covid-19 pandemic, supply chain disruptions; issues related to storms, floods, natural disasters, climate change, the world context has many difficulties, objective and subjective challenges. While Vietnam is a developing country, the economy is in transition, so it is very vulnerable to external factors, facing many difficulties when the world situation fluctuates, we have not been able to activate consumption as desired.

Export motivation is facing many difficulties due to many reasons such as the consequences of epidemics, wars, conflicts, geopolitical tensions, trade wars, etc. Therefore, we have to diversify markets, products, and supply chains, but we still cannot quickly capture the market. Currently, many regions and countries in the world have lowered their economic growth rate due to the impact of the export market.

When traditional growth drivers of exports are facing difficulties, we must rely on investment growth drivers, including public investment, FDI, and private investment... Public investment is determined to lead private investment, activating all resources for development, but a slow locomotive cannot lead or activate.

Emphasizing that each cadre, party member, and leader of Party committees and authorities at all levels must think about what needs to be done to promote public investment disbursement, not just sit and wait. The Prime Minister requested to see what institutional problems are still there and then continue to propose amendments; especially to think about why corporations and private enterprises are disbursing so quickly and implementing projects quickly...

The Prime Minister requested the Ministry of Finance to compile statistics on which ministries, branches and localities have slow disbursement and re-evaluate their staff. He said that the Government and the Prime Minister hold monthly conferences and meetings related to promoting the disbursement of public investment capital; issue issues, directives, telegrams, etc., but this problem is still stuck. Therefore, it must be dissected and analyzed. Those ministries and branches that do well must be rewarded, and those that do not do well must be disciplined.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh speaks at the conference. Photo: VNA

Regarding the results of public investment disbursement in the first months of 2025, the Prime Minister requested to clarify why ministries, central agencies and localities are slow in disbursing public investment; to find the cause, diagnose the disease, point out the difficulties, obstacles and bottlenecks; to clarify the responsibilities of ministries and branches; especially to clearly analyze why the same conditions and policies are done well in some places and not in others... In particular, to point out lessons learned in leadership, direction and implementation at all levels and branches, especially by leaders.

Requiring the design of tools and principles for regular measurement of public investment disbursement, the Prime Minister directed the Government's working groups to both grasp the situation and lead and direct; to take the right pulse to have appropriate solutions. Ministries, branches and localities must make greater efforts and be more proactive, demonstrating a sense of responsibility towards the country and work, not allowing the situation of "having money but not being able to spend it". All levels from the central to local levels must resolutely take action, actively lead and direct; assign "clear people, clear work, clear responsibilities, clear progress, clear results, clear authority"; state-owned corporations and groups must be proactive in promoting investment.

Emphasizing the spirit of strengthening decentralization and strong delegation of power to localities with the spirit of "locality decides, locality acts, locality takes responsibility"; ministries and branches should not get caught up in specific matters, the Prime Minister asked delegates attending the conference to speak frankly, go straight to the point, learn from experience, and "prescribe medicine and treat diseases".

According to the Ministry of Finance, in 2025, the total public investment capital approved by the National Assembly is more than 829 trillion VND. By April 30, 2025, ministries, central and local agencies had allocated and assigned detailed public investment plans for 2025 for the list of tasks and projects of nearly 818 trillion VND, reaching 99% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister.

As of April 30, 2025, the country's public investment disbursement was more than VND 128 trillion, reaching 15.56%. Of which, the central budget disbursement was about VND 476.6 billion, reaching 13.33%; the local budget disbursement was about VND 81.8 trillion, reaching 17.2%; the disbursement of capital for the 3 national target programs was more than VND 4.7 trillion, reaching 21.4% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister. Thus, in the first 4 months of 2025, there were 10 ministries, central agencies and 35 localities with disbursement rates above the national average. However, there were a number of ministries, central agencies and localities that had not disbursed or had low disbursement rates.

Hanoi Moi Newspaper will continue to update information about the conference./.

Source: https://hanoimoi.vn/thu-tuong-pham-minh-chinh-khong-de-tinh-trang-co-tien-ma-khong-tieu-duoc-702854.html