The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) has proposed the setup of a government’s taskforce to address difficulties in investment projects that have faced delays nationwide.
| North-South expressway project. Photo: Tran Dung |
The move came following a request from Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in early February on establishing a taskforce to deal with such projects.
The projects experiencing delays are those financed by the official development assistance (ODA), preferential loans, foreign direct investment (FDI) and under the public-private partnership (PPP) mechanism.
According to the MPI, investment projects in provinces/cities have been a focal point in attracting social resources for development. However, due to different reasons, many projects have not been implemented or lagged behind schedule, even for few decades.
“Such issues have led to the waste of land resources and public frustration, while becoming a bottleneck in investment for socio-economic development” stated the ministry.
“A comprehensive review of unfinished and delay projects is, therefore, necessary to clear the hurdle for development in each locality,” it added.
The MPI suggested the Deputy Prime Minister Pham Binh Minh to lead the taskforce, with minister and vice ministers of the MPI as deputy heads.
Other members would be senior officials at government agencies involving in investment projects or administering the investment procedures.
In the first five months of this year, disbursed amount of public investment stood at VND102.02 trillion (US$4.43 billion), down by 25% compared to the same period of last year and equivalent to 22.12% of the year’s target.
The disbursement rate of projects financed by ODA funds was estimated at only 3% during the period, for which the Ministry of Finance have been urging localities to transfer funds from projects with slow disbursement progress to those with higher pace.
Shortage of input materials, which resulted in higher prices, and the Covid-19 outbreak in a number of provinces/cities were cited by the government as contributing factors to the slowdown in the implementation of public investment projects.
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