HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City had disbursed nearly 21.28trillion VND (920 million USD at current exchange rate) of public investmentcapital as of August 23, fulfilling 50.5 percent of the assigned capital thisyear, the city’s Department of Planning and Investment reported.

At a recent online meeting on the issue, Director of the Department ofPlanning and Investment Le Thi Huynh Mai said both the amount of disbursedcapital and the rate of disbursement were higher than the figures for the same periodlast year.

Specifically, the amount of disbursed capital was up 2.35 times year onyear and the rate of disbursement up 1.89 times.
 
The official stressed that the achievement was a bright spot in the city’sperformance in 2020 considering the complicated developments of the COVID-19pandemic.

To fulfill the target for this year, the city has set a range ofsolutions. In early September, the Department of Planning and Investment willsubmit to the municipal People’s Committee a plan of actions for the last threemonths of the year, designed to remove difficulties for production and businessactivities, thus supporting enterprises and economic recovery.

Those who hold the top positions will be required to bear responsibilityfor the disbursement of public investment capital. Agencies, organisations orbusinesses that fail to complete targets in this work will not be consideredfor any emulation titles or awards.

The municipal authority will hold regular meeting, once every two weeks,to review the pace of work and capital disbursement of each major project.Capital will be transferred from projects with low disbursement rate to thosewith high rate. The city’s inter-sectoral working group will select keyprojects with low disbursement rate due to obstacles in procedures regardinginvestment, construction, bidding and land clearance to help them handle the problems.

Regarding projects using Official Development Assistance (ODA) capital,the city will work with the Ministry of Finance to reach agreement on the valueof capital in Vietnamese dong in September.

Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong requireddrastic actions towards the goal of disbursing 80 percent of public investmentcapital before October 15 and 100 percent by the end of the year.

He said district authorities should cut the time for procedure processingby at least 30 percent as well as reduce the time taken for land clearance.

Looking into the collection of contributions to the State budget, Phongrequired the city’s taxation and customs agencies to review tax dossiers andtax policies to prevent tax losses and fraud.

Director of the municipal Department of Finance Pham Thi Hong Hareported that in the first eight months of the year, the city collected an estimated216.76 trillion VND (9.35 billion USD) for the State budget, fulfilling 53.4percent of the yearly plan. She attributed the drop in State budget revenue tothe decline in production and business activities under the impact of the COVID-19pandemic.

To support the recovery of production and business activities, the citywill continue to implement policies to exempt or reduce taxes and fees inaccordance with policies adopted by the Government and the municipal People’sCouncil.

Ho Chi Minh City aims to fulfill at least 85.45 percent of the task onState budget collection, equivalent to 347 trillion VND.

The city’s authorities also plan to provide another support package forbusinesses affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Speaking at a recentmeeting, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong saidthe city is considering another support package, especially forenterprises that have suspended operations due to the impact of theoutbreak.

The city will issuespecific policies to help enterprises or industries heavilyaffected such as travel, restaurants, hotels, and transport andtourism-related services, he said.

 More than 21,000 businesses in the city havesuspended operations and laid off a large number of employees, said Phong./.