Law on Planning Paying Way for Socioeconomic Development

 

Mr Dang Huy Dong, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment and Vice Chairman of Planning Law Drafting Committee, said, after almost 30 years of doi moi (renovation), Vietnam has attained many important economic, social and political achievements. And, the planning sector has played a significant role. In the new era when the economy has shifted from self-subsistence economy to a market economy with an open door to the world, the change to planning work is an objective requirement. Planning work has also revealed many difficulties and restrictions like low planning quality, poor planning cohesion, and overlapped and inconsistent planning. Besides, planning has failed to prove its role as a regulatory tool to rationalise socioeconomic development. Planning methodology and contents have not caught up with new requirements of market economy and international integration. Those limitations and shortcomings have troubled socioeconomic development administration, wasted resources of the country and impeded investment, production and business activities of enterprises and citizens.

 

Before those urgent requirements, the Ministry of Planning and Investment was tasked to lead and coordinate with ministries, branches and research institutions to compile the Law on Planning, which now has 6 chapters and 70 articles.

 

Mr Vu Quang Cac pointed out that the new law will eliminate product planning and some sectoral plans as they are no longer suitable with the market mechanism, for example, shrimp planning and pangasius planning. Additionally, this new law has created breakthroughs in institution as it helps improve the consistency of the legal system while it streamlines 70 legal documents and ordinances on planning to just two documents: Law on Planning that governs master planning from central to provincial levels and Law on Urban and Rural Planning that governs detailed planning from district to commune levels.

 

Another new point in planning methodology and contents is the use of modern "integrated" methodology. Sectors and fields are integrated in master plans at different levels (national planning, national sea space planning, regional planning, provincial planning, etc.).

 

At the conference on draft Planning Law, the Ministry of Planning and Investment disclosed data about suspended plans that have vegetated socioeconomic development.

Mr Cac said, according to the ministry's statistics, Vietnam had 8,955 planning projects from central to local levels as of 2013, which cost VND6,720 billion to set up. By 2020, the country is expected to have 19,285 planning projects established with a total budget of nearly VND8 trillion. The Ministry of Planning and Investment pointed out that Vietnam had so many plans formed but not a few were low-quality, impractical and infeasible because of insufficient conditions and resources. He said although planning has contributed greatly to national socioeconomic development, its shortcomings and weaknesses are dragging on development. Low quality, non-cohesion, inconsistency, overlapping and contradiction also reduce planning efficiency.

 

Deputy Minister Dang Huy Dong said the new Law on Planning is expected to create new momentums of sustainable socioeconomic development in couple with the reform of investment and business administrative procedures. According to the new law, Vietnam will have 21 types of planning at the central, regional and provincial levels. Sector and field planning will be integrated into master planning at all levels except for some fields engaged in the use of rare natural resources distributed across the country. Another important point of the new law is the Government will handle and solve matters concerning conflicts of interest, interdisciplinary conflicts, and local to local conflicts so as to remove rampant, inefficient plans controlled by interest groups and local interests.

 

The draft Law on Planning is expected to be reported to the Government at the regular July meeting and submitted to the National Assembly for consideration in the 10^th meeting and for ratification at the 11^th meeting.