Investment Needed for a Breakthrough in Development of An Giang and Mekong Delta

 

The recent National Assembly’s session saw many new features. The law building has been promoted to meet the requirements of Vietnam’s integration and accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO). In addition, a democratic atmosphere was seen at debates of the National Assembly with its supervision role depicted via Q and A sessions with agencies and ministries. Concretely, in the past, when National Assembly deputies raised questions, heads of ministries and agencies promised their consideration. Now, ministers have to clarify how and how long these issues are to be settled. Also, the division into two debate sessions at the same time has helped deputies have more time to contribute their inputs and comments in the building of laws.

How has the National Assembly supervised the implementation of budget activities?
In terms of budget supervision, the National Assembly has seen a new feature. Accordingly, early estimates will be based on reference to localities, ministries and agencies. Then, full-time National Assembly deputies will discuss each individual issue to identify fields which need investment priorities. The issues are discussed at a plenum meeting of the National Assembly for approval, before budget norms are assigned to the Government, ministries, agencies and localities. This is a basis for each programme to be supervised. The National Assembly provides supervision on the macro level only. The supervision in localities is the responsibility of People’s Councils at all levels.

 

Voters’ awareness has improved as they can contribute inputs and comments about hot issues and question National Assembly deputies with a constructive aims.

 

The Mekong delta in general and An Giang in particular, face hot issues regarding economic development, and education and training. An Giang has identified its tasks of promoting economic restructuring with trade and services acting as a driving force for the development of industry and agriculture. To this end, the localities badly need infrastructure facilities. However, in recent years, the development of infrastructure facilities has remained slow. The building of bridges and canals needs a lot of capital but budget revenues from agriculture remains constrained. Furthermore, knowledge of people in the Mekong delta remains poor, resulting in a poor quality of human resources. Recently, the Government has paid careful attention to these issues. However, investment is concentrated mainly in agriculture. A change has been seen in the Government’s investment in the region as in 2006 over VND 3,000 billion will be invested in the region. I think that the Government should be more determined in its investment in the Mekong delta and An Giang province in particular to make a breakthrough in the region’s development.