This year, Hanoi aims to disburse 100% of public funds, which is seen as a key measure to boost the city's socio-economic development.

The Cat Linh - Ha Dong urban railway in Hanoi. Photo: Hai Linh

The city's main objective is to ensure that departments, branches, districts, and other project stakeholders take immediate action to implement the established disbursement roadmap, with a focus on addressing project difficulties and issues.

Recently, Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Tran Sy Thanh instructed the units responsible for investment preparation to expedite the approval process and submit the investment plan to the City People's Council for approval.

This is in preparation for the upcoming meeting of the City People's Council in early July 2023, where 62 new projects to be funded under the 5-year medium-term public investment plan 2021-2025 will be submitted for approval.

Investors have also been instructed to complete procedures and submit their project proposals to the appropriate authorities for approval. This is about 106 city-level projects on the 5-year medium-term public investment plan 2021-2025 list, whose investment policies have been approved but have not yet received project approval. The aim is to complete this process in the second quarter of 2023.

The Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee has directed all units involved to accelerate investment procedures, such as adjusting project plans, approving contractor selection, and finalizing construction designs, to commence project implementation as soon as possible.

As for district-level projects, the People's Committees of districts and towns are tasked with directing specialized departments to promptly complete appraisal reports. These reports will then be submitted to the competent authorities for investment procedures, including planning approval, contractor selection plan, technical design estimate, tendering results, and any necessary project adjustments. The aim is to complete these procedures by April 2023.

Thanh also requested all units and investors to carefully assess the implementation ability of their projects before proposing capital plan arrangements, noting this will help avoid situations where the capital plan cannot be fully disbursed due to unreasonable calculations or proposals.

The Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment will lead and coordinate with investors to identify additional capital needs for new or transitional projects that require more resources to accelerate their progress.

The Department of Planning and Investment advises the Hanoi People's Committee to submit a proposal to the City People's Council, at their meeting in July 2023, to transfer capital from projects that are experiencing slow investment procedures or implementation progress, to projects with better implementation and capital absorption capacity.

The Department of Finance will work closely with the Department of Planning and Investment to advise the City People's Committee on finding the capital sources to ensure project progress. They will also review and urge the settlement of completed projects.

Thanh expected districts, towns, and units to continue demonstrating initiative and decisiveness in their roles as investors for many city-level projects. This includes implementing solutions to accelerate project progress and disbursement, particularly in the case of city-level projects that have historically low disbursement rates.

For projects facing ground clearance issues, the Hanoi People's Committee requests that investors and district/town People's Committees increase their efforts to ensure the timely implementation of these projects.