Director of the Department of Finance proposed solutions to mobilize and effectively use resources to turn Nghe An into a national growth pole.

Define clear goals

Determining the goal of building Nghe An into a national growth pole is not only a legitimate aspiration but also an objective requirement for the development of Nghe An province in the new era. This is also the guiding direction affirmed by General Secretary To Lam at the working session with the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee.

Comrade Trinh Thanh Hai - Director of the Department of Finance explained: In fact, if Nghe An does not set a high growth target in the next term (from 12% or more as in the Political Report presented to the Congress), it will be very difficult to successfully achieve the goal of becoming a fairly developed province in the country by 2030. This is similar to the Central Government's goal of the whole country achieving double-digit growth in the next 20 years to become a developing country with modern industry and high average income by 2030, and by 2045 to become a developed country with high income.

Nghe An province must, on the one hand, strive to contribute to the whole country in realizing the above strategic goals, but at the same time, it must also set a growth requirement higher than the national average to complete the province's strategic goals.

To realize this ambitious goal, the Director of the Department of Finance raised three key questions that need to be clearly answered: First, where is Nghe An in comparison with the region and the whole country?

Second, in the new context, what are the foundation and growth drivers of the province and what are the barriers and challenges that our province is facing?

Third, how can Nghe An truly break through and become a national growth pole?

Thoroughly answering the above three questions is the key to clearly identifying tasks, key solutions, comprehensive innovation and breakthrough development in the 2025-2030 term.

Looking back from the beginning of 2020 until now, the complicated and unpredictable developments of the world situation along with natural disasters, epidemics, and climate change have had a huge impact, both in the short and long term, on the socio-economic situation of our country in general and Nghe An province in particular. However, Nghe An province has firmly overcome difficulties and challenges; continued to achieve many important and quite comprehensive results: The economy maintained good growth, production capacity and economic scale are increasing; The growth rate of total product in the province (GRDP) is estimated at 8.3-8.5%, higher than the national average; The economic scale increased 1.7 times compared to 2020, currently ranked 19th out of 34 provinces and cities; State budget revenue ranked 16th, the total number of operating enterprises ranked 15th; FDI attraction has been in the top of the country for many years.

The above outstanding achievements have created and will create important momentum, accumulating position and strength for breakthrough, faster and more sustainable development in the next period.

However, comrade Trinh Thanh Hai said that it is necessary to look directly at the reality of the difficulties, limitations, and shortcomings in the development process of the province over the past years; compared with the region and the whole country, many economic indicators of the province are still low, especially after the arrangement of provincial-level administrative units, the comparison has some more unfavorable factors.

Specifically, the economic scale dropped from 10th to 19th, the average GRDP per capita of Nghe An is only about 57.22% of the national average, ranking 29th out of 34 provinces and cities; labor productivity is still far behind the leading group; small and micro enterprises account for 97.5% of the number of enterprises and only about 1.62% of operating enterprises pay taxes of over 1 billion VND/year; in particular, the gap in development level between the plains and mountainous areas is still very large, especially in ethnic minority areas, remote and isolated areas.

The above factors show that the path to becoming a fairly developed province of the country, reaching the national growth pole is an extremely difficult and challenging task.

In difficulties and challenges, there are always opportunities. If we can identify or proactively create opportunities and seize the opportunity, challenges can also become a driving force for development. In addition to political determination, Nghe An province also has certain foundations to set high growth targets through fundamental factors that have been established over many terms, namely:

The first,The province has maintained high growth momentum in the 2021-2025 period compared to the national average; FDI projects have been attracted and put into operation and promoted effectively, gradually forming electronic component production chains for the world's leading technology corporations; Industrial parks have been established along with the Southeast Economic Zone Expansion Project, which will continue to open up new prospects in attracting investment, especially dynamic FDI projects.

Monday,Infrastructure, especially many strategic transport infrastructure projects have been completed and put into use (such as the North-South Eastern Expressway, coastal road, etc.), a number of new projects will be implemented such as the High-speed Railway, Vinh - Thanh Thuy Expressway; upgrading and expanding East-West connecting axes, building Cua Lo deep-water port; Vinh international airport, Logistics Center, Quynh Lap LNG Power will have a spillover effect in connection and development.

Tuesday,Institutions, policies, and development barriers have been and are being removed by the Central Government. The province has been issued Resolution No. 39-NQ/TW by the Politburo on developing Nghe An province to 2030, with a vision to 2045; the National Assembly issued Resolution No. 137/2021/QH15 on piloting a number of specific mechanisms and policies; if we know how to seize opportunities and promote effectiveness, these are strategic "leverages" for the province to make a breakthrough.

3 groups of key tasks and solutions

Through analyzing the practical context, to successfully achieve the goal of becoming a national growth pole, the Director of the Department of Finance proposed key groups of tasks and solutions based on three main pillars.

One is,create new development space. Focus on improving the quality and effectiveness of planning work comprehensively; the focus is on quickly reviewing and adjusting the planning of Nghe An province for the period 2021-2030, with a vision to 2050, organizing the simultaneous establishment of lower-level plans on the basis of inheritance and development, both effectively exploiting the overall advantages and expanding the space and new development space suitable for the new commune-level administrative units after the arrangement, ensuring the motto "planning is one step ahead".

In addition to the two main growth driving areas, the Vinh urban area and the expanded Southeast Economic Zone, which have been identified, it is necessary to expand development space for satellite growth poles in new commune and ward clusters with potential linked to the four economic corridors; the North-South high-speed railway axis, the Vinh-Thanh Thuy expressway, the Vinh-Cua Lo axis, and the Lam River area linked to Nghi Xuan (Ha Tinh).

Early formation and development of high-tech agricultural and forestry zones, high-tech zones in the Southeast Economic Zone; promote industry clusters in the province, together with Thanh Hoa and Ha Tinh provinces, develop the coastal corridor of Thanh Hoa - Nghe An - Ha Tinh based on the complementary development and resonance between the three economic zones of Nghi Son - Southeast and Vung Ang, aiming to become an industrial center, a dynamic sub-region of the North Central region in the development space of dynamic growth regions of the whole country.

Two is, renewing traditional growth drivers and promoting new growth drivers. In the short term, our province must continue to identify traditional growth drivers (investment, export and consumption) as the focus, but to achieve the target of high and sustainable growth in the long term, it is necessary to exploit and promote new growth drivers. Nghe An province's planning has identified 5 key development areas; in which, industry is the breakthrough driver, modern trade and services are the spearhead, and agriculture is the foundation.

However, it is necessary to clearly identify the distinct advantages of each sector, at the same time, be determined to shift from traditional production to smart production, modern management, and use high technology to improve productivity; prioritize policy resources to strongly develop green economic models, circular economy, digital economy, sharing economy and new economic sectors such as electronic chips, microchips, semiconductors; especially have a strategy to harmoniously combine diversification and specialization in manufacturing sectors. Diversification to create inclusive growth and promote development in the Western region is still very difficult. Specialization to concentrate resources on dynamic areas and satellite growth poles.

Third,Mobilize and effectively use new resources for investment and development. To achieve the growth target of 12%/year or more in the coming period, the total investment capital for the period 2026-2030 needs about 1.15 million billion VND, this is a very large number, 2.3 times higher than the previous term, in which the maximum public investment capital only reaches about 3-5%, FDI about 10%, the rest is capital from society, from the private sector still accounts for the main proportion.

Therefore, on the one hand, we must promote the effective use of budget resources in the direction of ensuring focus, key points, and concentration on strategic priority infrastructure projects, thoroughly overcoming the situation of dispersion and fragmentation, and completely removing backlog projects.

At the same time, it is necessary to mobilize the maximum resources of the whole society, especially the private economic sector, considering this as a breakthrough resource for development; only when the financial resources of the people go into production instead of shelter and speculation can they create value and promote real and sustainable economic growth.

The strategic and long-term task is to be determined to further improve the investment and business environment to be truly open, favorable, transparent and competitive, thereby promoting and strongly spreading the spirit of entrepreneurship throughout the province. In addition to selectively attracting FDI projects, it is necessary to pay attention to strengthening the connection between the FDI sector and enterprises in the province, especially in technology transfer and human resource training, becoming an important link in the supply chain.

To do this, it is important first of all to improve the internal capacity of the provincial enterprises themselves to be ready for cooperation; the province needs to have policies and support funds to develop a number of large enterprises capable of being the core, playing the leading role, leading the ecosystem of linkages, building local product brands of national and regional stature.

"Nghe An province is facing a pivotal and turning point, together with the whole country, preparing to enter an era of strong, civilized and prosperous development of the nation; the favorable opportunities are great but the challenges and difficulties are not small. I believe that, with the tradition, will and determination of the Party Committee, people and business community in the whole province, we have the basis to break through and realize the aspiration to become a fairly developed province and a national growth pole in the new era of development", the Director of the Department of Finance expressed.