Long An: Infrastructure investments strongly recommended, including National Highway 62

Standing Deputy Prime Minister - Truong Hoa Binh highly appreciates the results that Long An has achieved in recent years

The meeting was chaired by Member of Politburo, Standing Deputy Prime Minister, member of Long An NA - Truong Hoa Binh and Head of the Long An NA Delegation - Truong Van No. Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council - Pham Van Ranh; Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee - Tran Van Can also attended this meeting.

Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee - Tran Van Can briefly reported the socio-economic situation of the province in the first 4 months. Due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, the province's industrial production index decreased over the same period; total retail sales of goods and services decreased by 0.7 percent over the same period.

The total state budget revenue has been focused on directing since the beginning of the year, the results of implementing the policies on tax exemption, extension and prolongation was quite good. Until April 26, 2020, the total state budget revenue in the province reached 5,483 billion VND, reaching 31.71 percent of the Central estimate, reaching 32.48 percent of the estimate assigned by the Provincial People's Council, equal to 86.88 percent  compared to the same period.

Besides, the province drastically focused on measures to prevent and control Covid-19. The social security policies are fully implemented. Up to now, the province has approved to support 125,620 people of poor, near-poor households, social protection people and nation-deserving people affected by the epidemic, with a total budget of over 147 billion VND.

The provincial leaders, the provincial departments and branches attend the meeting with representatives of some ministries, central branches and governmental offices.

On this occasion, the provincial People's Committee and its departments and branches presented difficulties, problems and proposals to the Central Government on amending and supplementing regulations when calculating enterprise’s income tax in order to create conditions for the province to call businesses to invest in constructing infrastructure works in the area; suggested that the Government set up a center for distributing Vietnamese agricultural products in the Chinese market to act as a contacting place for domestic enterprises.

At the same time, the Central Government is requested to guide the implementation in the direction of only needing preliminary environmental impact assessment in the stage of applying for investment policy for projects under the deciding competence of the National Assembly and the Prime Minister; Particularly, projects under the provincial decision-making authority are not required to make a preliminary environmental impact assessment when applying for investment policy, but an environmental impact assessment will be prepared after the provincial People's Committee approves the project.

Over the past time, due to the situation of Covid-19 epidemic, many businesses in the province tried not to let workers leave work, but just arranged the working time or send workers to work alternately. For these cases, the Provincial People's Committee also proposed the Government to extend the payment of social insurance in 6 months, excluding interest for businesses to overcome difficulties.

The People's Committee and departments also proposed the allocation of capital to implement the rural electricity supply project from the national electricity grid in the period 2015-2020; amend and supplement regulations on organizing drug detoxification at home and in the community; adopt special policies to attract doctors and staff to work at drug detoxication establishments; adjust and amend the Construction Law in the direction of "exempting construction permits for separate houses in remote areas"; etc.

Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and Chairman of the Provincial People's Council - Pham Van Ranh suggested that the People's Committee of Long An Provincial People's Committee continued to propose to the Government to soon invest in upgrading and expanding National Road 62 and National Road N2 because these roads are now very narrow, do not yet meet the local development requirements. At the same time, he proposed to consider investment in N1 line to develop border areas and serve national defense and security.

At the same time, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee suggested that the Central Government should soon approve the additional planning and advocate for the province to invest in building a driving force connecting Tien Giang - Long An - Ho Chi Minh city; consider and support Long An in funding the construction of 3 traffic bridges on this road. According to Mr. Pham Van Ranh, this is a strategic route that not only contributes to the socio-economic development of the province but also the whole region.

Secretary of Provincial Party Committee, Chairman of the Provincial People's Council - Pham Van Ranh proposes the Government to soon upgrade Highway 62 because this has been a pressing issue for many years.

In addition, Mr. Pham Van Ranh also proposed that the Central Government balance the early investment capital to build the Ring Road 3, creating a connection between Ho Chi Minh City and neighboring provinces including Long An; consider and supplement planning to build solar power systems in the province; for the policy of building a large-scale water reservoir to serve daily-life activities and production in case of drought, salinity, and so on.

Standing Deputy Prime Minister - Truong Hoa Binh highly appreciated the achievements that Long An has achieved in recent years, including the prevention and control of Covid-19. He suggested the province continue investing in constructing infrastructure, especially transport infrastructure to serve industrial development; pay attention to doing well the treatment of garbage, not letting environmental pollution affect production and people's life.

On the other hand, he said that Long An needs to continue promoting administrative reform, creating all favorable conditions to attract and retain investors; strengthening trade promotion activities, expanding product consumption markets, especially agricultural products for farmers. Along with that, attention should be paid to training high-quality human resources to meet development requirements in the coming time.

By An Ky - Translated by Duc Tam 

Source: http://baolongan.vn/long-an-kien-nghi-nhieu-ve-dau-tu-ha-tang-trong-do-co-quoc-lo-62-a94717.html