Leaders of each province/city are requested to review all public projects, especially new ones, in terms of necessity and efficiency.

Belt Road No.3. Photo: Hai Linh

Total projects financed by state funds during the 2021-2025 period should be around 5,000, around half the figure in the past five years.

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh made the view clear in a directive No.13/CT-TTg on speeding up the construction progress and enhancing quality of projects under the public investment plan for the 2021-2025 period.

While the global and domestic economies continue to be under serious impacts from the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam is under huge pressure to push for further infrastructure development, environmental protection and boosting resilience against climate change, Chinh said in the directive.

“The effective realization of the five-year public investment plan stays central in further improving Vietnam’s socio-economic development in short-, medium- and long-term,” he added.

To ensure greater efficiency in public spending, Chinh urged local authorities to focus on projects in key fields or economic zones, of national priority and with high spillover effects to different economic sectors.

“A part of state budget should also be allocated to efforts to prevent natural disasters, diseases, climate change, in turn ensuring social welfare and improving people’s living standards,” the PM continued.

“It is imperative to fight off corruption and “ask-give” mechanism during the process of state budget allocation.”

According to Chinh, as local authorities are given more power to make their own decision, this should come with heightened supervision from higher-level agencies.

“Public funds should be seen as a pull factor for social resources to follow and serve socio-economic development objectives, especially in transportation projects under the public-private partnership financing mechanism,” he added.

The Vietnamese government allocated VND2,000 trillion (US$87 billion) for public projects in the 2016-2020 period, while the average disbursement rate was estimated at 83.4%.

In the first four months of this year, disbursement rate of public funds rose by 16.3% year-on-year to VND98.7 trillion (US$4.26 billion), or 21.5% of the year’s estimate.