The National Assembly recently voted to pass a Resolution on piloting a number of specific mechanisms and policies for the development of Nghe An province. The above mechanisms and policies will have great significance for the socio-economic development of Nghe An in the coming time.

Reality

In the 2021-2024 period, the world economy will develop complicatedly, strongly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and regional armed conflicts. In our country, enterprises are facing many difficulties due to the pandemic and slow economic recovery.

In Nghe An, budget revenue has increased but slowly. In 2021: Budget revenue reached 19,911 billion VND. In 2022, budget revenue will reach 22,491 billion VND. In 2023, budget revenue will reach 21,508 billion VND.

In the first 6 months of 2024, Nghe An's budget revenue is estimated at 11,897 billion VND, reaching 74.8% of the estimate assigned by the Provincial People's Council, equal to 140.2% over the same period.

The structure of state budget revenue in the province is assessed as not really sustainable. Of which, revenue from land use fees accounts for a large proportion and tends to increase. State budget revenue from production and business activities tends to decrease, key enterprises such as beer and hydropower (accounting for about 30% of revenue from enterprises) continue to face difficulties due to consumption trends, beer consumption output continues to decrease; the weather is increasingly harsh, hot and drought are frequent, not favorable for hydropower activities.

The Dien Chau - Bai Vot Expressway has just been completed and put into operation

Besides, dairy companies have been producing and operating at full capacity, unable to contribute to increasing the State budget revenue. Newly launched projects have not generated revenue as expected: Hoa Sen Steel Company, MDF wood, VSIP, etc.

Cement enterprises with large investments, although the units have generated large revenues, there is no value added tax payable due to offsetting with the input of the investment project, etc.

Meanwhile, local budget expenditures in recent years have increased from VND 27,638 billion in 2021 to 32,945 billion VND in 2022; 35,661 billion VND in 2023 and in 2024 the estimate is 36,090 billion VND (an increase of 31.8% compared to 2021). Budget expenditure for the entire period of 2021-2024 reached 132,284 billion VND. The issue of revenue and expenditure is still a burden, etc.

The importance of support resources

The National Assembly's Resolution on piloting a number of specific mechanisms and policies for the development of Nghe An province has notable contents such as: Nghe An is allocated an additional 50% of the public investment capital from the central budget with additional targets for the locality according to the principles, criteria and norms prescribed in the Resolution of the National Assembly Standing Committee on principles, criteria and norms for allocating public investment capital from the state budget for the 2026 – 2030 period.

This capital is for investment in key projects in the province and development of socio-economic infrastructure in the western region of Nghe An. The Provincial People's Council decides on the list of projects specified in this clause, etc.

A representative of the Nghe An Department of Planning and Investment said: These are policies to mobilize and supplement investment resources for the province in the context of limited local resources. Thereby, it will contribute significantly to ensuring the successful implementation of the goals of Resolution No. 39-NQ/TW of the Politburo on building and developing Nghe An province to 2030, with a vision to 2045.

In particular, the allocation of an additional 50% of public investment capital from the central budget with additional targets for localities will create very important conditions for the province to focus on investing in completing the infrastructure system in the area, especially key infrastructure projects and socio-economic infrastructure of the Western Nghe An region are currently bottlenecks that need to be resolved.

Recently, many projects in Nghe An are in dire need of capital such as: Vinh - Cua Lo road; upgrading the traffic route connecting from National Highway 1A to National Highway 7A; Quynh beach tourist road; Traffic routes in the Western districts; N5 road extended to Tan Ky; Mo Vinh bridge project across Ro river, Thanh Chuong district; Vinh-Vientiane road; road leading to Cua Lo deep-water port.

Similar are the projects to build Vinh city into the center of the North Central region in the fields of: trade, tourism, logistics, healthcare, education and training, science and technology, high-tech industry, and build Do Luong district into a town before 2030, etc.

Faced with such urgent capital needs, Nghe An province's economy will benefit from the spillover effects of public investments and infrastructure projects formed from expenditures implemented on schedule thanks to policies under specific mechanisms.

It is known that in the 2021-2025 period, the total investment capital from the State budget of Nghe An province is assigned 39,154.4 billion VND (according to the capital announcement of the Prime Minister). Of which, the targeted additional budget source for localities arranged in the medium-term public investment plan is 5,811.4 billion VND (excluding capital arranged for key projects, inter-provincial and inter-regional projects and national target programs).

Due to the large demand, the capital allocation plan in the public investment plan for the 2021-2025 period only meets about 25% of the demand for new projects starting in the province, especially for the targeted additional source from the Central Government for localities.

Therefore, many infrastructure projects in the province cannot be implemented. This is also one of the factors affecting the completion of basic goals and targets such as GRDP economic growth rate.

Graphics

Resolution No. 39-NQ/TW dated July 18, 2023 of the Politburo on building and developing Nghe An province to 2030, with a vision to 2045, set an average GRDP growth target of about 10% in the 2021-2030 period. This is quite a challenging goal for Nghe An province.

In addition, the total estimated demand for social development investment capital in the 2026-2030 period is about 1,090,000 billion VND, of which the demand for investment capital from the State budget for development investment is 61,000 billion VND.

Therefore, implementing specific mechanisms and policies to support Nghe An province to have more resources to carry out key socio-economic infrastructure projects of the locality and the western region of the province is practical, to gradually achieve the goals set out in Resolution No. 39-NQ/TW of the Politburo.

Tran Chau

Nghe An Newspaper (July 15, 2024)