On the morning of June 13, carrying out the Prime Minister's assignment, on behalf of the government, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc reported and explained a number of issues related to the government's management and administration that National Assembly deputies and voters were interested in; and directly answered questions from National Assembly deputies.

6 key solutions to complete the socio-economic development plan

In the explanatory report, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc emphasized that the government seriously accepted the opinions of National Assembly deputies and voters and people nationwide stated in the Report of the Central Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front as well as reflected in the mass media.

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc answers questions from National Assembly deputies. Photo: Nguyen Dan - VNA

Reporting further on the socio-economic situation in May and the first five months of 2015, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that in May, our country's socio-economic situation continued to achieve many results in most areas.

Macroeconomic stability, major balances of the economy are basically guaranteed. Consumer price index (CPI) increased by 0.16% in May, 0.2% in 5 months. Credit growth reached 5.18% (same period in 2014 was 1.51%).

The report also frankly pointed out the shortcomings, limitations and difficulties that need to be overcome in implementing the socio-economic tasks in 2015 such as: Natural disasters and droughts are complicated, greatly affecting production and life, especially in the Central and Central Highlands provinces.

Consumption of some agricultural products is still facing many difficulties (rice, rubber, coffee, fruit, etc.). The growth rate of export turnover tends to decrease, in which agriculture, forestry and fishery products decreased by 9.5% compared to the same period. The number of international visitors to Vietnam decreased by 12.6%. There are still some serious traffic accidents...

The Government has proposed 6 important solutions that will be urgently implemented in this period, including: Focusing on removing difficulties, promoting agricultural production associated with product consumption; promoting socialization of investment and business in infrastructure, especially transportation; continuing to improve the investment and business environment, enhancing competitiveness; focusing on solving social issues; proactively preventing and mitigating natural disasters and strengthening security, social order and safety, and traffic safety.

Accordingly, the government will continue to effectively implement the Project on restructuring the agricultural sector towards increasing added value, sustainable development, adjusting the structure of crops, livestock and plants to suit the conditions of each region and locality.

Prepare well for conditions, make the most of incentives and advantages when participating in the ASEAN Economic Community and Free Trade Agreements. Timely remove difficulties for businesses, improve competitiveness.

Continue to review and perfect mechanisms, policies and laws, along with promoting administrative procedure reform, improving the investment and business environment to create the best conditions for businesses and people.

Strengthening anti-corruption, promoting public ethics

Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc's first response was to a question from delegate Huynh Nghia (Da Nang) regarding the results and measures to promote the government's anti-corruption work to meet the expectations of voters and people nationwide.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that the issue of corruption has been vigorously implemented in many aspects in recent times, achieving some positive results, but the results have not yet met the set requirements, corruption is still serious and complicated.

Specifically, in 2014, 256 corruption-related cases were investigated, discovered, and handled with 593 defendants, an increase of 25 cases and 25 defendants compared to the previous year. In terms of recovered assets, in 2013, the rate was only over 10%; in 2014, with many major cases, the rate was over 22%.

Regarding anti-corruption measures, at the recent meeting, the Deputy Prime Minister said that the General Secretary and Head of the Central Steering Committee on Anti-Corruption has proposed eight major measures, namely: The Party and State must lead and direct to do better in anti-corruption work; continue to build anti-corruption institutions.

In addition, it is necessary to investigate, prosecute, try, inspect, audit, and strictly adjudicate discovered corruption cases; especially to build institutions so that corruption cannot, should not, and dare not occur; to propagate and mobilize the people, cooperate internationally, and importantly, promote the role of elected agencies and the Vietnam Fatherland Front in detecting acts of corruption.

Responding to the question of delegate Le Nhu Tien (Quang Tri) about the government's solution to the problem of a number of civil servants engaging in harassment and deviating from the standard of behavior towards the people, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that the country currently has nearly 4 million civil servants and public employees (not including the armed forces).

If this team does well, it will play a huge role in bringing policies to the people. Therefore, cadres must always be dedicated, exemplary, and polite in serving the people.

The fact that a number of cadres and civil servants show signs of being distant from the people and bureaucratic is an issue related to public service ethics. The National Assembly has issued the Law on Civil Servants and the Law on Public Employees, the Government has issued 18 Decrees guiding this issue and in the near future, the Government will continue to implement a number of measures to inspect, examine, and innovate the public service ethics regime such as job descriptions, staff reduction, and especially organizing examinations to find good cadres to serve the people; along with strengthening discipline, discipline, timely assessment and voting to remove weak cadres from the apparatus to clean up the team serving the people.

Regarding the situation of civil servants "going to work with an umbrella in the morning and returning home with an umbrella in the afternoon" as mentioned by delegate Le Nhu Tien, the Deputy Prime Minister said that although it does happen, the number of such officials is not large.

To overcome this phenomenon, agencies and organizations need to take good measures such as job descriptions and promoting democracy to promptly detect, prevent and limit it. In fact, this situation has decreased and according to the Politburo's Resolution on streamlining the payroll, the first thing to do is to reduce the payroll of this type of civil servant, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized.

Review of tree replacement in Hanoi, temporary suspension of filling Dong Nai River

Also related to the question of delegate Huynh Nghia about the government's viewpoint on the cutting down and replacement of many-year-old trees in Hanoi and the filling of the Dong Nai River, whether or not to put business interests above the interests of the people, the Deputy Prime Minister replied that the capital Hanoi has over a thousand streets with trees on both sides.

Recently, in response to public opinion about cutting down trees in Hanoi, the Prime Minister has directed to inspect this issue, after which the Government Inspector General also commented. The Hanoi People's Committee has also proactively established an inspection team. The inspection results show that cutting down trees on Nguyen Trai Street to serve the construction of the overhead railway ensures safety according to the provisions of the Railway Law.

For Nguyen Chi Thanh Street, the replacement of trees is to regenerate the row of mixed trees according to the new planting project, replacing damaged and fallen trees. The Deputy Prime Minister said that through inspection, Hanoi concluded that the project was still sketchy, and there were certain errors in the implementation process, such as not being open and democratic, not mobilizing the people, not consulting experts and the people.

Regarding the handling of responsibilities, through inspection, Hanoi city has drawn conclusions and will seriously review organizations and individuals who violated shortcomings in the process of upgrading and repairing the city's green trees.

Regarding the filling of Dong Nai River, the Deputy Prime Minister said that according to public opinion in the press, the Prime Minister has issued a directive document, sending an interdisciplinary inspection team led by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to directly examine the scene; at the same time, the National Assembly's Committee on Science and Technology has also sent a working group to coordinate and examine the issue.

According to the official recommendation of the specialized inspection team to the government, the Dong Nai River filling project is to be temporarily suspended to assess environmental impacts.

Socialization is not synonymous with privatization.

Answering the question of delegate Nguyen Tien Sinh (Hoa Binh) about the implementation of the policy of socializing the upgrading of transport infrastructure, whether it will turn into privatizing the State's infrastructure or not, the Deputy Prime Minister affirmed that socializing investment in developing transport infrastructure is the policy of the Party and the State.

Socialization does not mean privatization. Investing in transport infrastructure through forms of cooperation and business according to legal regulations, then returning capital to the State with zero dong, there is no such thing as privatization.

Socialization but not loosening State management. Specifically, issues such as service quality, fee collection for public services, and land management are all managed by the State, ensuring the interests of three parties: the State, investors, and the people.

Around some projects such as National Highway 1 and Ho Chi Minh Road, with 50% of the remaining government bond capital being socialized, the transport sector has a policy of mobilizing socialized enterprises in the form of BOT construction, business transfer, which means that the State signs with the investor for a certain period of time, ensuring quality requirements such as a 4-year warranty, full disbursement, strict implementation of mutual monitoring mechanisms on quality, and selecting transparent and capable investors.

On this occasion, the Deputy Prime Minister also requested the transport sector and local people to continue to inspect and supervise the investment in National Highway 1 and Ho Chi Minh Road through the Central Highlands to ensure quality and progress.

Create favorable conditions to promote private economy

Answering the question of delegate Vu Tien Loc (Thai Binh) about the government's policy in promoting the private economic sector, the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that the private economic group plays a huge role in the economy, aiming to create jobs, generate GDP and recover the budget.

Since the Enterprise Law 2005, this sector has developed remarkably with nearly 500 thousand enterprises and over 4 million individual business households that can develop into enterprises. However, the general situation of enterprises is still simple, with low added value.

Therefore, the need for large-scale and highly competitive enterprises is very important in the context of integration. The Government advocates creating a more favorable business environment, associated with macroeconomic stability to create favorable conditions for the development of the private economic sector; in addition, improving the legal environment on bankruptcy; not criminalizing economic cases; equitizing state-owned enterprises to ensure equality, publicity, transparency and promoting administrative procedure reform, the Deputy Prime Minister stated.

Tight control of public debt

Questioning the Deputy Prime Minister about the government's solution to manage public debt, delegate Tran Hoang Ngan (Ho Chi Minh City) said that this is a concern of National Assembly delegates and voters nationwide. Answering this question, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said that the public debt/GDP ratio is always a controversial issue.

The most important thing in public debt management is the ability to borrow and repay debt. In Vietnam, due to the need for development, especially infrastructure development, the rate of public debt growth is higher than GDP growth. Up to now, public debt in our country is at 62%/65% of GDP (the level allowed by the National Assembly).

The Deputy Prime Minister affirmed that the government is very cautious in managing public debt. The Prime Minister has issued Directive 02 with a number of measures to ensure public debt such as strengthening public spending management, increasing long-term loans, increasing domestic loans, borrowing foreign ODA with low interest rates (average 1.6%/year); strictly managing loans guaranteed by the government; collecting all debts.

It is also important that the government continues to maintain macroeconomic stability, economic growth, and improve the investment environment to contain public debt.

Proactively integrate into international economy

During the question and answer session this morning, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc also answered questions from many delegates who expressed concerns about the context of 2015, when Vietnam joined the ASEAN Community and a number of major agreements came into effect or were completed in negotiations and signing, such as questions from delegates: Tran Hoang Ngan; To Van Tam (Kon Tum); Nguyen Ngoc Bao (Vinh Phuc). The Deputy Prime Minister said that after our country joined the WTO in 2007, in 2008, we immediately fell into the global economic crisis.

The main reason is that the country's economy has accumulated many shortcomings over many years, businesses have not responded promptly, and experience in directing, managing, and operating is still limited in responding to the crisis. The Deputy Prime Minister said that in 2015, based on previous experience, we need to be proactive and actively ready for integration.

AFTA is a great opportunity but also a challenge that can make us lose right at home, therefore, we need to have many measures to welcome this opportunity such as perfecting the legal system, improving the investment environment; restructuring the economy and importantly, strong innovation from the people, businesses and the whole country.

Regarding joining the ASEAN Community, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized the three pillars: Politics and security, economy and culture and society. In recent times, Vietnam has been one of the three countries that have actively implemented these contents, achieving many good results.

However, joining the ASEAN community at the end of 2015 still has difficulties, requiring much effort in many aspects; in which, the issue of preserving national cultural identity when joining the common house of ASEAN is also an urgent requirement that the Party and State pay attention to, lead and direct the implementation.

Answering the question of delegate Nguyen Thi Kim Be (Kien Giang) about the policy of supporting and temporarily storing rice, and also sending a message to farmers nationwide, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc emphasized that the policy of supporting and temporarily storing rice is necessary to ensure farmers' rights regarding commodity prices.

Recently, the government decided to temporarily store 1 million tons of rice equivalent to paddy in the Mekong Delta, thanks to this policy, farmers are not forced to lower prices. Regarding the question of why farmers are not directly supported, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc explained: People do not have warehouses that are guaranteed to be moisture-proof and mold-proof to store rice. In addition, the financial problem of purchasing reserve rice is also limited. The government will study to find appropriate solutions to ensure the best support for farmers.

Selected the right issues to question

Concluding the questioning session of Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung said: The Deputy Prime Minister answered 24 questions from National Assembly deputies with 30 questions.

The National Assembly Chairman assessed that the Deputy Prime Minister's answer went straight to the point and resolved the issues raised, but of course there were also issues that needed to be further addressed to achieve results.

Summarizing the entire question and answer session of the 9th Session, National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung said that after 2.5 days of questioning 4 ministers, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc spoke to clarify issues under the government's responsibility and directly answered questions. In total, there were over 130 opinions from National Assembly deputies and over 200 questions were discussed in the hall during the question and answer session of the 9th Session.

National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung assessed that the results of the questioning showed that the National Assembly had chosen the right content of the questioning, including pressing issues arising in life, which are also strategic and long-term issues of concern to voters nationwide and the National Assembly.

The question-and-answer session took place in a democratic, frank and constructive atmosphere. National Assembly deputies asked short, clear questions, focusing on the issues being questioned. Many deputies re-asked questions to clarify the issues of concern with government members; frankly pointed out shortcomings and weaknesses, requesting ministries and branches to continue to have solutions to overcome them.

Government members answered directly to the questions asked, did not avoid thorny and complicated content, clarified many issues raised by delegates, took personal responsibility and expressed determination to change the situation. Also in this question and answer session, a number of specific issues were resolved.

National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung stated that the National Assembly welcomed the seriousness, openness, and high responsibility of the ministers in resolving the commitments made to the delegates and voters. After each questioning session, there was an assessment, summary, and consensus on the work of each sector and field.

The National Assembly Chairman stated that after this session, the National Assembly requested the government at all levels and sectors to synchronously deploy necessary measures to create positive changes in the issues of questioning. The National Assembly Standing Committee will continue to organize questioning and explanations at the meetings of the National Assembly Standing Committee; the National Assembly agencies will organize supervision of the contents of questioning and organize explanation sessions on the areas of responsibility, meeting the demands of compatriots and voters nationwide.

National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Sinh Hung also said that the National Assembly Standing Committee will study and develop a resolution on questioning and answering questions to submit to the National Assembly for approval at this session, as a basis for all levels and sectors to deploy and implement.

According to VNA