Expected to reduce about 50% of provincial administrative units after rearrangement

Also attending were Politburo member, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister, Permanent Deputy Secretary of the Government Party Committee Nguyen Hoa Binh; members of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Prime Ministers, Deputy Secretaries of the Government Party Committee, Ministers, Heads of ministerial-level agencies, members of the Standing Committee of the Government Party Committee.

Implementing the direction of the Politburo in Conclusions 126-KL/TW dated February 14, 2025 and Conclusion No. 127 KL/TW dated February 28, 2025, the Standing Committee of the Government Party Committee has developed and submitted to the Politburo for comments the Project on administrative reorganization at all levels and the construction of a 2-level local government organization model. Based on the Politburo's comments, the Standing Committee of the Government Party Committee met to further complete the Project on administrative reorganization at all levels and the construction of a 2-level local government organization model to report to the Politburo.

At the meeting, delegates focused on discussing the criteria for arranging administrative units; plans and orientations for arranging and merging administrative units; proposed names and plans for selecting locations for political and administrative centers of newly established administrative units; functions, tasks, powers and organizational structure, staffing of provincial and communal governments...

In his concluding remarks, Party Secretary and Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh stated that the vast majority of opinions and public opinion highly agreed with the policy of rearranging and reorganizing administrative units at all levels and building a two-level local government, to suit the new situation and current management capacity when traffic infrastructure and digital infrastructure conditions have been strongly improved, while creating new development space, maximizing the potential differences, outstanding opportunities, and competitive advantages of each locality.

Regarding the two-level local government model, which is the provincial level (including provinces and centrally-run cities) and the grassroots level, the meeting agreed to submit to the competent authority a plan that after the arrangement will reduce about 50% of the number of provincial-level administrative units and about 60-70% of grassroots-level administrative units compared to the present.

Based on the analysis of principles and criteria, especially on the planned arrangement, names and administrative-political centers of provincial-level administrative units, the Party Secretary and Prime Minister requested that the arrangement of administrative units, in addition to the criteria on natural area and population size, consider criteria on history, tradition, culture, ethnicity, geographical conditions, socio-economic development level, infrastructure, etc. In particular, the naming of provincial-level administrative units must be inheritable; the selection of administrative-political centers must consider historical, geographical, infrastructure connection, development space, national defense, security and integration factors.

The Prime Minister emphasized the requirement for the arrangement and reorganization of administrative units at all levels to strengthen authority, further promote the self-reliance, autonomy and self-reliance of local levels; the government is closer to the people, more closely to the people, solving work for the people more conveniently; bringing more benefits to the people, making the people increasingly happy and prosperous; creating consensus among the people.