Medium-term public investment: Where to put capital?

Sharing public investment views so far, Minister Nguyen Chi Dung said that there still exist two conflicting views. That is, it is necessary to focus investment on a number of industries, fields and localities that are dynamic, leading and pervasive, in order to promote faster development and higher budget contributions. On the contrary, localities with difficult socio-economic conditions also need attention to quickly narrow the development gap with previous localities.

"Both of these needs are legitimate, but the ability to balance is very limited", Minister Nguyen Chi Dung shared why there is still a situation where investment is spread out at times and in some places.

With the adoption of the Resolution on the Medium-term Public Investment Plan for the period 2016-2020, Kien Giang Provincial National Assembly Delegate, Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Be, hopes to overcome the limitations in public investment so far, which are spread, fragmentation, low efficiency, and outstanding capital construction debt. This is a problem that many National Assembly delegates from previous sessions have voiced suggestions to fix.

“The 2016-2020 medium-term public investment plan is invested on the principle of concentration, avoiding spreading, avoiding waste, openness, transparency, clear allocation criteria is to focus capital on urgent key works and projects, which will overcome current limitations", Ms. Be hopes and believes that this investment plan will help agencies, localities, and organizations implement more proactively, limit ask-give mechanism and no overlap between investment resources for society.

Total capital for public investment in the 2016-2020 period is 2 million billion VND (including 200,000 billion VND in reserve capital), of which 50% is used in the transportation sector, which according to some National Assembly delegates is too "favorable" to the transportation sector. However, according to Binh Dinh Provincial National Assembly Delegate, Mr. Nguyen Van Canh, prioritizing capital for the transportation sector at this stage is reasonable because the mission of the transportation sector is... to go ahead and pave the way.

"Even though we invested up to 1 million billion VND in traffic, it only met 30% of the demand, so it cannot be said that the investment capital for traffic is too much," Mr. Canh said, adding that, thanks to State capital and social capital focused on the transport sector in recent times, there have been many traffic projects that have brought about economic development efficiency in many provinces and cities, facilitating travel and transportation. transporting goods of people and businesses, changing the socio-economic appearance of many regions across the country.

Mr. Nguyen Van Son, National Assembly Delegate of Ha Tinh province, assessed that due to its extremely important nature to the country's development process in the entire period of 2016 - 2020, the medium-term public investment plan was prepared very elaborately by the Government and synchronized with relevant laws such as the Law on Public Investment, the Law on Construction, the Law on Investment, the Law on Bidding...

“In particular, since the Public Investment Law took effect (January 1, 2015) up to now, the Government and the Prime Minister have issued many resolutions, decrees, and directives to guide and adjust the selection of each priority project, investment associated with appraisal, balancing sources, overcoming previous rampant and ineffective investment. Medium-term public investment will gradually change the investment mindset according to the term, fundamentally overcoming limitations and weaknesses in current public investment", Mr. Son believes.

According to Minister Nguyen Chi Dung, the viewpoint of building a medium-term public investment plan is to develop infrastructure, create conditions for business development, and promote growth. On the other hand, public investment also implements social goals, eliminating hunger and reducing poverty, supporting mountainous areas and ethnic minorities in economically difficult areas, investing in infrastructure in all fields, especially ensuring national defense and security.

Minister Nguyen Chi Dung said that the Resolution on the Medium-term Public Investment Plan for the 2016-2020 period recently passed by the National Assembly has absorbed the opinions of National Assembly delegates in the spirit that the public investment plan is built in accordance with the 5-year socio-economic development plan; development strategies for industries, fields, and localities and associated with the public debt strategy, in accordance with the 5-year financial plan. The plan is also consistent with the ability to balance the state budget, focusing on attracting investment from other economic sectors.