Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Xuan - Deputy Head of the Provincial Delegation of National Assembly Deputies chaired the conference. The conference was attended by Mr. Nguyen Loc Ha - Vice Chairman of the PPC and representative leaders of provincial departments, committees, and branches.
Deploy supporting policies
As reported by the PPC, after nearly 2 years of implementing Resolutions No. 43 and 57, policies aimed at supporting economic recovery and sharing difficulties for people and enterprises have basically been effective and have been positively evaluated by people and enterprises. The province's economy has recovered as it did before the COVID-19 pandemic, with some industries and fields growing quite well compared to the national average. Social life activities have returned to normal. Gross regional domestic product (GRDP) increased by 8.01% in 2022 and by 5.97% in 2023.
The province has deployed policies to reduce costs and support cash flow to facilitate enterprises, economic organizations, and people. Specifically, in 2022, the Tax branch had 1.598 taxpayers who had their value-added tax (VAT), land rent, and taxes of individual business households (personal income tax, value-added) extended with a total extension of 2.224 billion VND. In addition, an extension of temporary corporate income tax (CIT) payments for the first and second quarters of the 2022 tax period was also extended for 2.072 taxpayers. In 2023, the Tax branch has continued to extend the deadline for paying VAT, CIT, PIT, and land rent for 3.849 cases with a total amount of 4,164.94 billion VND. The branch also has implemented a reduction in environmental protection tax with a reduced tax amount of 111.46 billion VND. Moreover, it has reduced registration fee rates for cars, trailers semi-trailers, etc. according to regulations with an estimated amount of about 128 billion VND.
Overview of the conference
In addition, the Provincial State Bank Branch has directed credit institutions to reduce costs so as to reduce lending interest rates, which aimed to support enterprises in recovering and developing production and business. The branch has strictly implemented the State Bank's regulations on deposit interest rates and deployed measures to reduce deposit interest rates to create conditions for reducing lending interest rates for customers. It has also continued to implement solutions to reduce interest rates, especially interest rates on existing outstanding loans and new loans under the direction of the Government and the Prime Minister to support enterprises and people to recover and develop production and business. Currently, short-term loan interest rates in the area are commonly at 3.5-8.0%/year (interest rates at the beginning of the year are 7.2-9.5%/year); medium and long-term loan interest rates are 6.5-10.2%/year (interest rates at the beginning of the year are 8.8 - 11%/year). Short-term USD loan interest rates are commonly at 3.0-6.0%/year.
In the province, there are 18 credit institutions providing loans with interest rate support according to Decree No. 31/2022/ND-CP of the Government. As of October 31, 2023, the total loan volume with interest rate support is 8,371 billion VND. The total amount of interest rate support is 39.6 billion VND with 73 customers receiving interest rate support, mainly enterprises. The fields in which loans with interest rate support are concentrated are mainly processing and manufacturing industries, aviation industry, logistics industry, etc. Implementing the credit program worth 120,000 billion VND on lending to social housing, workers' housing, renovation and reconstruction of old apartment buildings, from April 01, 2023, the Bank has deployed loans with interest rates during the preferential period 1.5-2% lower than the average medium and long-term lending interest rates of 04 state-owned commercial banks in the market and non-state commercial banks eligible with specific credit packages in each period.
As of October 2023, regarding restructuring the debt repayment term, the banking sector in the province has implemented it with a total outstanding debt that has been restructured with a repayment term of 15,250 billion VND with 531 customers.
For the Ho Chi Minh City's Ring Road 3 project, in general, the progress of site clearance has basically met the proposed schedule and the site for construction implementation. However, the project's land recovery has not met the proposed plan; and compensation, support, and resettlement plan for some cases have not been approved, etc.
Continue to remove obstacles
Discussing at the conference, delegates said that the obstacles in implementing the above two Resolutions are that the allocation of public investment capital is still slow, leading to not being able to disburse all allocated capital in time. Some enterprises and people are eligible for support but do not register to benefit from the policy due to fear of inspection and examination. Some enterprises were granted credit limits, but due to a decline in orders, there was no need for disbursement. Although loan interest rates have been sharply reduced, some customers have not met the conditions of orders, collateral, etc. so they cannot access preferential capital sources.
On that basis, delegates proposed solutions to effectively deploy fiscal and monetary policies to support socio-economic recovery and development. According to Mr. Lai Xuan Dat - Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment, departments and branches need to improve the effectiveness of assessment and forecasting of the situation, closely monitor developments in supply and demand of goods, market prices, proactively and flexibly act appropriately to regulate and stabilize the market. Having a plan to respond and make timely adjustments to urgent and unexpected situations that arise. They should enhance proactiveness, close coordination, flexibility, synchronization, and unity in advising, formulating, organizing implementation, and information and communication on policies associated with promoting decentralization, authorization, upholding the responsibility of leaders, and strictly observing administrative discipline and rules. Being proactive and flexible in deploying and disseminating good practices and good experiences to ensure effective policy implementation.
Mr. Ha Minh Trung - Deputy Director of the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs said that in the coming time, the Department will continue to review, study, and propose timely support policies for people and workers in difficult circumstances. The department will promote the application of information technology and database systems to deploy support policies quickly and effectively, avoiding confusion, errors, and policy profiteering. At the same time, it advised and recommended that the Government have a policy for enterprises with debt, delaying the time to pay Social Insurance, Unemployment Insurance, and Health Insurance from 3-6 months so that enterprises can maintain production, create jobs, take care of life, and retain workers. Support policies for workers need to have an appropriate implementation period to avoid putting pressure on the staff who are implementing them as well as avoid errors during the implementation process. There also needs to be implementation conferences and training for localities so that the application can be convenient and quick.
Mr. Vo Ngoc Sang - Deputy Director of the Provincial Transportation Works Construction Investment Project Management Authority reports on the implementation status of Ho Chi Minh City's Ring Road 3 project passing through Binh Duong province
Regarding Ring Road 3, especially the issue of resettlement for affected households, Mr. Vo Ngoc Sang - Deputy Director of the Provincial Transportation Works Construction Investment Project Management Authority said that the project goes through many areas and the number of cases affected by the project is large (1,511 cases). Therefore, directing and resolving problems takes a lot of time. Due to the unit price of compensation and asset support when the State recovers land approved by the PPC, there are still some problems that need to be amended and supplemented, which has affected the progress of approving the plan and handing over the site for project construction. Coordination and resolution between relevant parties is sometimes slow, with many opinions not reaching consensus. He requested the People's Committees of localities where the project passes through to continue to issue Decisions on land recovery and decisions approving the compensation, support, and resettlement plan for the remaining cases.
Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Xuan - Deputy Head of the Provincial Delegation of National Assembly Deputies concludes the conference
Concluding the conference, Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Xuan highly appreciated the efforts of agencies and units in implementing the National Assembly's Resolutions related to fiscal and monetary policies to support recovery and socio-economic development. It is recommended that departments and branches review all policies related to Resolutions No. 43 and 57; advise and guide disbursement of outstanding funds; add in the report additional recommendations for solutions related to policies for workers and enterprises; study and arrange resettlement areas related to the Ring Road 3 project to stabilize people's lives.