Illustrative photo. (Source: VNA)During the first six months of the year, the province’s Party Committee, People’s Council and People’s Committee have together taken various measures to speed up the public investment disbursement.
Capital disbursement plans have been assigned for 2021’s projects and programmes since the end of last year to help investors balance the financial needs of them and enable improved performances. Competent authorities have also cut 30 – 50 percent of time required for completing public administrative procedures during the pre-investment verification and appraisal process at the request of the chairman of the provincial People’s Committee.
The province has also set specific timelines for the investment disbursement of each type of project this year while investors must be committed to following the timelines. Periodic reviews have also been conducted to identify projects with slow investment disbursement so capital can be withdrawn from slow-moving projects and transferred to faster ones.
Additionally, every major, key projects must be kept under the supervision of one of provincial leaders. District-level People’s Committees must also pledge to ensure that progress of site clearance for each project is on schedule.
Thanks to such drastic efforts, 106 out of 125 investors of projects funded by public capital have fulfilled 50 percent and more of their disbursement plans. The best performers among them include the Department of Transport (56.5 percent), Department of Public Security (93.5 percent), People’s Committee of Nong Cong district (100 percent), and People’s Committee of Cam Thuy district (98.9 percent).
Keeping disbursement of public investment on schedule is of great importance to Thanh Hoa’s socio-economic development, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic is wreaking havoc on the local economy, said Le Minh Nghia, Deputy Director of the provincial Department of Planning and Investment.
It will help create jobs for thousands of people, boost local economic growth and offset economic losses in pandemic-hit sectors, he said.
Nghia noted that the province reported a Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) growth of 8.66 percent in the first half of 2021, setting the scene for the accomplishment of public investment plans in the remaining months.
Thanh Hoa has been among ten cities and provinces receiving the highest public investment (over 10 trillion VND) for years. The province has also remained in the Top 10 performers in terms of investment disbursement.
Early this year, Minister of Finance Dinh Tien Dung called for faster progress of public investment disbursement, saying hastening the disbursement speed from the start of this year was an important solution to accelerate economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
He also requested that projects failing to meet planned progress should have their capital revoked.
According to the General Statistics Office, every increase by 1 percent in public investment disbursement would push GDP by 0.06 percentage points.
The disbursement rate of public investment capital in 2021 is expected to reach between 95-100 percent of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
As planned, the disbursement of public investment will reach at least 60 percent of the plan by the end of the third quarter of the year.
Latest statistics released by the General Statistics Office (GSO) show that total social investment in the first six months of 2021 increased 7.2 percent year-on-year to 1,170 trillion VND.
Of the figure, over 295.2 trillion VND was sourced from the state sector, up 7.3 percent; 660.1 trillion VND came from the non-state sector, rising by 7.4 percent; and 214.4 trillion VND was from the foreign direct investment sector, up 6.7 percent./.
VNA
