Basic salary will increase to 1.49 million VND in 2019

Reporting on the implementation of the state budget in 2018, the estimate and allocation plan of the central budget in 2019, Minister Dinh Tien Dung said that the estimated regular expenditure next year is 470.9 trillion VND.

Of which, the estimated expenditure for salary reform and staff streamlining is 16.2 trillion VND. From July 1, 2019, pensions and allowances for meritorious people will be adjusted by 7%; basic salary will increase from 1.39 million to 1.49 million VND/month.

Agree on salary increase plan

In the audit report, Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee Nguyen Duc Hai said that the structure of state budget expenditures is expected to shift in a positive direction, reducing the proportion of regular expenditures and increasing investment expenditures.

“In 2019, the proportion of regular expenditure is expected to be about 63.8% of total expenditure (lower than the 2019 estimate of 64.1%); investment expenditure is 26.3% (higher than the 2018 estimate of 26.2%). Although the change in this proportion is still very modest, it has contributed to ensuring the target of investment expenditure - regular expenditure structure according to the National Assembly's resolution,” Mr. Hai emphasized.

The Economic Committee assessed that in the context of difficult state budget revenue, higher salary allocation tasks (increasing the basic salary by VND 100,000/month from July 1, 2019) and ensuring more and more social security policies, the shift in the state budget expenditure structure as planned is an effort in management and operation of the Government, ministries, branches and local authorities.

However, Mr. Hai noted: "Some opinions say that arranging a higher basic salary increase compared to recent years will create more pressure and difficulty to reduce regular expenditures according to the resolutions of the Central Committee and the National Assembly."

The Finance and Budget Committee noted that, in order to implement Resolution 18 of the 6th Central Committee, the Government has built a regular expenditure estimate for 2019, including the budget for streamlining the payroll and assigning autonomy mechanisms towards cutting salary and operating expenses of public service units according to the roadmap.

The Committee basically agrees with the principle of budget allocation as proposed by the Government. This will promote the delegation of autonomy to public service units, contributing to the positive shift in the structure of regular expenditures, gradually reducing the proportion of regular expenditures in the total state budget expenditures.

Regarding the implementation of salary reform, increasing by about 7% from July 1, 2019, Mr. Hai said that this is being carried out in accordance with the roadmap decided by the National Assembly in the national 5-year financial plan for the period 2016-2020, in order to contribute to increasing the income of officials and civil servants.

On the other hand, the 2019 salary reform carried out in conjunction with staff streamlining according to Resolution 18 is appropriate.

Therefore, the majority of opinions in the Finance and Budget Committee agreed with the plan submitted by the Government.