National Assembly (NA) deputies called for several points in the draft Law on Planning needed to be revised to ensure its consistency and feasibility during discussion on Wednesday morning at the fourth plenary session of the 14th NA.
Despite generally agreeing with the necessity of issuing the Law on Planning, which is expected to help eliminate overlaps and inconsistencies in planning and prevent wastes of resources, NA deputies expressed concerns as the law, if passed and put into effect from 2019, would require amendments to the dozens of existing laws and codes.
At the previous seating, the NA decided to postpone the passing of the law for more consideration to ensure its feasibility.
In the report of the NA Standing Committee on Tuesday, Chairman of the Economic Committee, Vu Hong Thanh, said that the draft law was adjusted towards expanding the vision to ensure inheritability and stability of the planning, 20-50 years for national-level planning and 20-30 years for regional and provincial planning.
NA deputy Nguyen Thanh Xuan of Can Tho City said amending too many relevant laws and codes was unprecedented and not an easy task, urging careful revision to ensure consistency. Xuan added that instructions to implement the law must also be issued timely.
Allocating resources for development was the most important factor in planning, NA deputy Hoang Van Cuong of Ha Noi, said.
"The planning must be based on development resources and trends, as well as science and technology development trends, to ensure efficiency in allocating resources," Cuong said.
To prevent stagnation in planning, deputy Le Minh Chuan of northern Quang Ninh Province said that the draft law should add regulations about the implementation of planning.
Chuan said the agencies, which were in charge of approving the planning, must be of higher levels than the agencies in charge of actually planning to enhance supervision, and prevent inconsistencies and groups of interest.
He added that it’s time the planning took into account the impacts of industry 4.0.
Expressing concerns about airspace and underground planning, deputy Luu Binh Nhuong from the southern Ben Tre Province, said more studies were needed.
He said that airspace and underground planning had not been mentioned adequately in the draft law, while the construction of underground projects was anticipated to increase rapidly.
Deputy Pham Trong Nhan of the southern Binh Duong Province said that the core to ensure comprehensive planning was the application of technologies, as well as the capacity of planning makers and appraisers to tackle problems related to conflicts of interests between different planning so as to optimise resources.
“This is definitely a difficult law project, which requires the coordination of a number of ministries and agencies,” Minister of Planning and Investment, Nguyen Chi Dung, in charge of compiling the draft, said.
Regarding the planning of special administrative - economic zones, Dung said that the planning must be based on the scale of the zones. However, scales of the special administrative – economic zones remained unclear because the law regulating this was being drafted.
The ministry’s statistics revealed that in 2011-20, the total number of planning counts on all levels in Viet Nam reached nearly 19,300, in which many were proved overlapping or inconsistent.
The ministry expects to reduce the planning counts to 11,400 if the Law on Planning is passed and comes into force. — VNS