Focus On Socioeconomic Recovery and Development Solutions

9:12:11 AM | 3/17/2022

Immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic was controlled, Bac Lieu province focused on reviewing and applying solutions to deal with difficulties against people and businesses and adopted many solutions to economic recovery and development.

In 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic development was very complicated in Bac Lieu province. The province had 33,244 COVID-19 infections as of January 12, 2022. To actively respond to the pandemic evolution, the provincial government directed relevant agencies to actively develop scenarios in response to each level of the pandemic in a bid to protect human health and recover economic development.

Mr. Pham Van Thieu, Chairman of Bac Lieu Provincial People's Committee, said when the pandemic broke out, the committee directed departments, branches and districts to effectively adopt measures with respect to social distancing; step up infection tracing, quarantine and lockdowns; strengthen community-wide virus tests; ensure vaccination schedules; establish quarantine and treatment areas for infections; fulfill mandatory management, monitoring, consulting and treatment of infected cases; and improve and enhance coordination in medical support and treatment from lower to higher levels.

In practice, many good models and new methods came up and were constantly scaled up across the province like "Zero COVID-19 neighborhoods" to establish safe zones, "Mobile sampling and testing for people", and "Mobile vaccination team and rapid response team”. The vaccination coverage was high: Adults: 98.87% vaccinated with first dose, 96.46% with second dose, and 38.25% with third dose; children aged 12-17: 88,269 children vaccinated with first dose and 84,799 with second dose (as of January 2022).

Besides, right from the beginning of 2021, the Provincial People's Committee actively worked out economic growth scenarios to adapt to COVID-19 pandemic development. Bac Lieu province strongly developed agricultural production as agriculture was considered the backbone of the economy. At the same time, it focused on attracting investment and facilitating investment projects, especially wind power projects, to speed up their progress. The distribution and transportation of essential goods, agricultural products and medical supplies was guaranteed. Social security policies for poor households, near-poor households and socially protected beneficiaries were well and timely implemented, especially those adversely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

At present, the COVID-19 pandemic in Bac Lieu is controlled; production and business activities are expanded to drive up growth while social security is well implemented in order to effectively achieve the dual goals of drastically preventing and combating the COVID-19 pandemic and protecting people's health, and recovering socioeconomic development.

Some solutions aimed at rapid and sustainable local socioeconomic development:

- More strongly restructuring the agricultural sector and developing the rural economy and the marine economy; gradually building and developing Bac Lieu into a center of high-quality shrimp seed production; focusing on developing high-tech shrimp farming.

-Speeding up industrial and handicraft development; accelerating the progress of renewable energy projects, especially Bac Lieu LNG Power Project; intensifying investment promotion, inviting businesses to invest in locally strong fields; actively supporting local export processors to increase technological and equipment investment to expand production and raise export quality, value and competitiveness.

-Further investing in tourism infrastructure, improving the quality of tourism products and services; strengthening Bac Lieu's tourism cooperation with tourism centers in other provinces and cities in order to upgrade its tourism brand and competitiveness, meet diverse needs of tourists to restore and develop the local tourism industry in the so-called new normalcy.

-Furthering administrative reform, especially streamlining administrative procedures; drastically and consistently carrying out solutions to improve and raise scores and rankings of the Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI) and the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI).

By Vietnam Business Forum