​At Binh Duong bridge point, there were Mr. Nguyen Van Loi - Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Head of the Provincial Delegation of the National Assembly Deputies; Mr. Vo Van Minh - Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee; leaders of departments, committees, branches, localities and representatives of associations and enterprisess in the province.

Opening up safely

At the webinar, Mr. Vo Van Minh - Deputy Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee gave an overview on the situation of pandemic adaptation and control; production restoration and socio-economic development of Binh Duong province. Accordingly, in 2021, with the change of the anti-pandemic strategy from "no Covid-19" to "safe and flexible adaptation and effective control over the pandemic", Binh Duong has returned to the "new normal" with positive signals. The province has strictly implemented the testing strategy in each phase and development of the pandemic to proactively detect and remove F0 in high-risk areas and implement appropriate pandemic prevention and control measures. Carrying out testing, screening all cases with suspected symptoms, key supervision testing in high-risk areas, mass gatherings to control and prevent new infection chains.

Accumulated to November 29, 2021, the entire province has injected 4,248,367 doses of Covid-19 vaccine; 206,383 doses were administered for subjects of 12-17 year olds and 16,836 doses were administered to foreigners.

Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Vo Van Minh presents the situation of pandemic adaptation and control; production recovery and socio-economic development of the province at the webinar

In addition, in order to safely open up and support enterprises to restore production post Covid-19, the province has directed departments, committees, branches and district-level People's Committees to support enterprises to register for implementation of production plans suitable to the conditions of each enterprise. Up to now, in the province, there are about 2,195 production enterprises in industrial parks (accounting for 90.25%) with a total of 401,768 workers (accounting for 82.7%) registered and engaged in production under the models of "1 road, 2 locations", "3 on-the-spot", "3 green" and "3 flexible on-the-spot".

Socio-economic results continued to be positive. The gross regional domestic product (GRDP) increased by 2.79%; attracting foreign investment capital 2 billion 069 million USD; revenue and expenditure exceeded the set targets. The field of culture and society continued to receive attention and direction, especially taking care of those affected by the pandemic.

Overview of the webinar at Binh Duong bridge point

In order to ensure the labor source to serve the production and business needs of enterprises, the province has issued a plan to coordinate in attracting and welcoming workers from provinces and cities wishing to return to Binh Duong to work; propagated and guided enterprises with labor needs to take steps as prescribed; coordinated with other provinces and cities to agree on a coordination and support mechanism so that workers can return and work in Binh Duong more smoothly. The situation of political security and social order and safety continued to remain stable. Foreign affairs was actively implemented, with an appropriate and effective form in the context of the pandemic, making an important contribution to the province's investment attraction.

Many solutions for safe, flexible adaptation and socio-economic development

At the webinar, many delegates evaluated Binh Duong province's solutions as flexible, timely, in line with reality, and clearly recognized the importance of adapting and controlling the Covid-19 pandemic in the coming time. Going into this issue, Dr. Nguyen Thu Anh - Director of Woolcock Institute of Medical Research, University of Sydney, Australia said that Binh Duong needs to focus on vaccines, inject correctly, inject rightly and give priority to injections for groups aged 50 and over, groups with underlying diseases; at the same time planning booster injections, receiving technology transfer of vaccines and pharmaceuticals. In treatment, building a simple process, easy to implement on a large scale; preparing enough equipment, medicines, biological products, testing capacity, medical finance and requiring a tool to monitor and connect this system. Besides, it is necessary to improve the capacity of grassroots health care, especially in communes, wards and commune-level towns with a large number of workers; have policies to attract good medical staff to the grassroots.

As for the backup solution for the new variant, the delegates suggested that Binh Duong need to continuously update the situation of the Omicron variant to prepare a response scenario; at the same time, build a network of facilities that are capable and operate flexibly, improving people's self-rescue capacity.

Many good initiatives and solutions are presented at the webinar

Prof. Dr. Nguyen Hong Son - Deputy Head of the Party Central Committee's Economic Commission said that Binh Duong is a locality heavily affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the province needs to assess and clearly determine the direct impacts on the overall socio-economic development goals and strategies in order to have specific and appropriate adjustment solutions. In addition, it is necessary to pay close attention to the issue of attracting high-quality human resources, and to have separate mechanisms and policies to recruit talents. At the same time, taking advantage of available market and regional linkages; continuing to stay close to the people, contribute and rely on each other in the face of common difficulties with enterprises to effectively restore the economy.

Dr. Le Dang Trung - General Director of Real-Time Analytics Company said that digital transformation and smart city construction is one of the key issues, creating a new step for the economic recovery and development of Binh Duong. Specifically, when opening up the economy and living with the Covid-19 pandemic, people will be supported with knowledge, information and contact for medical support; helping grassroots staff reduce work load and increase service quality; information management agencies operate more effectively. At the same time, implementing social security policies for the right subjects and in a timely manner; limiting duplication and errors. Easily connecting jobs inside and outside the province; supporting the recovery and development of enterprises, cooperatives and business households. In practical terms, Binh Duong will have to make a "leap" from stage-3 e-Government to stage-4 Digital Government; at the same time, follow the province's orientation towards building a smart city which is equivalent to implementing stage 5 of the Digital Government model.

Noting all comments from delegates, experts and scientists at the webinar, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Nguyen Van Loi shared, Binh Duong has passed the peak of the pandemic, difficulties are still piling up, however, this is also an opportunity for the entire political system, enterrise community, and people in the province to join hands in restructuring the economy, making the most of all resources to innovate the growth model, develop trade-service industries and digital economy, focusing on science and technology development, innovation, improvement of labor productivity and competitiveness are the issues that need to be addressed in order to overcome and develop the socio-economic effectively and safely against the pandemic. Besides short-term and urgent solutions, Binh Duong will deploy groups of long-term solutions to restore production and business, overcome supply chain disruptions and create new impetus for economic growth in a sustainable way; strengthen digital transformation, build the smart city; quickly deploy social housing projects for workers and employees.

Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Nguyen Van Loi speaks at the webinar

Speaking at the webinar, Prof. Dr. Nguyen Xuan Thang highly appreciated Binh Duong's efforts, initiatives and solutions over the past time. Through the contents exchanged at the webinar, he hoped that Binh Duong would find a new solution and an appropriate direction to safely adapt to the pandemic, recover and develop the economy; from that, maintaining its development foundation, continuing to be a dynamic economic region that plays an important role in the Southern Key Economic Region.

Reported by Doan Trang - Translated by Nguyen Trang​