Mr. Nguyen Van Phuong, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee
Sir, the pandemic situation is still complicated. Could you please tell me how the province has implemented the "dual goals" of preventing the COVID-19 pandemic and promoting socio-economic development?
Since the 4th outbreak of the pandemic on April 27th, 2021, learning from previous experiences, all strong measures and reasonable solutions have been applied flexibly and thoroughly by the province. Therefore, after nearly five months of new cases detected, Thua Thien Hue has step by step, controlled well the pandemic situation in the community, facilitating the implementation of the "dual goals" of preventing the COVID-19 pandemic as well as promoting socio-economic development.
Also, the socio-economic situation in the first nine months of 2021 has been basically stable, achieving some positive results. Thua Thien Hue was praised by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh for implementing the "dual goals," including pandemic prevention and control meanwhile stabilizing, recovering, and developing socio-economics.
Chairman Nguyen Van Phuong is checking pandemic control checkpoints. Photo by NGOC MINH
In terms of socio-economic development, except for the tourism and service sectors being heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, some notable highlights are the budget revenue after nine months exceeding the target of the whole year, fairly high growth in import and export turnover, stable growth in agriculture, forestry and fishery, etc. The province also focuses on ensuring security, order, and social security and continues to implement policies well to support people encountering difficulties or having reduced incomes due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
So, has the province had any scenario to implement the message "Adapting safely to return to a new normal life"? And when developing a safe adaptation scenario, how does the province identify new opportunities and new driving forces for economic growth and restructuring?
The province continues to strictly, synchronously, drastically, and effectively implement the direction of the Central Government and the province on preventing and controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, we are implementing vaccination against COVID-19 according to regulations. The functional forces promptly detect and handle the pandemic effectively and prevent it from breaking out and spreading in communities, industrial parks, and concentrated residential areas.
In addition, we are promoting the application of information technology for pandemic prevention and control. Besides, the province is reviewing and preparing scenarios and plans to respond to the pandemic in all situations and proactively respond promptly to each pandemic level.
Chairman Nguyen Van Phuong, (second from left), during an inspection in a concentrated isolation facility
The province directs all levels, sectors, and localities to organize a specific assessment of the impact and effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on industries, fields, and localities, to identify new opportunities and a new driving force for growth, functioning as a basis for building growth scenarios in 2022 and the following years in the direction of accelerating economic restructuring.
In the current time, for areas being prioritized, how will the province pay attention to support them; remove difficulties and obstacles, and promote production and business activities?
In the leadership and administration of socio-economic development, the province still steadfastly implements the "dual goal" of preventing and controlling the COVID-19 pandemic and recovering socio-economic development.
Specifically, the province is restructuring the State budget in the direction of gradually increasing the proportion of development investment spending, reducing the proportion of recurrent expenditure, which is suitable with the situation of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is also essential to continue to promote the budget collection, prevent the loss of budget revenue, manage the budget spending in a tight, thrifty, and efficient way, prioritize resources for critical projects and urgent tasks on social security, pandemic, and natural disasters prevention and control.
Along with that, we are also focusing on supporting, speeding up the start-up and construction of primary and critical projects that have been granted investment policies, and hastening the progress of completed projects to put them into operation within the year to create a new growth motivation. Besides, the province is speeding up the disbursement of investment capital, resolutely withdrawing and completely handling projects that are behind schedule, protracted, and violate the law on land and investment.
The province will also pay attention to investment in completing infrastructure of economic zones and industrial zones. Particularly, we would focus on renovating promotion and calling for investment in a focused and concentrated direction. Furthermore, the province is thoroughly preparing and raising the readiness of projects calling for investment to attract and effectively use investment capital from all economic sectors, especially the private sector.
At the same time, it is also vital to consider proposing policies and mechanisms to support, attract and facilitate tourism development in the new situation, proposing policies to attract enterprises to invest in industries serving agriculture and rural areas; preferential policies to support investment in sectors and fields with advantages, especially for large, brand-name investors. This aims to strongly improve the business investment environment and enhance the province's competitiveness.
Another issue is that how is the job creation for Thua Thien Hue people returning from other provinces or cities and workers losing their jobs associated with social security, sir?
According to statistics of the labor sector, up to now, the whole province has 25,160 people of working age returning to the local. Particularly, there is a need for vocational training for 1,431 employees, a need for loans for job creation for 4,618 people, a need for job introductions for 9,791 employees, and a need for 342 employees to work abroad under contract.
Recently, the province has organized job counseling and introduction for 9,791 workers who need to find a job to work at 34 enterprises that need to recruit with 7,669 job vacancies to stabilize their lives.
The Provincial People's Committee continues to direct local authorities to effectively implement programs, projects, schemes, and plans for socio-economic development to create more jobs for workers. Moreover, it is necessary to pay attention to livelihood models, especially those with economic development orientation to attract workers.
We are also coordinating with related industries to introduce local jobs through traditional, agricultural, and non-agricultural occupations, helping workers get jobs and increase incomes.
Besides, it is important to develop vocational training and career-changing plans, create jobs for employees, effectively implement policies on vocational training associated with job creation for local workers, prioritize career-changing, and introduce employment for workers in need.
Thank you, sir!
By Thai Binh