|
City praised for measures to beat economic slump
City authorities have been lauded for their efforts to tackle the economic slowdown by expediting implementation of large-scale projects and increasing enterprises' access to credit.
The praise came from Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc during a working session with municipal authorities held last week to monitor deployment of the Government's stimulus package.
The city People's Committee Vice Chairwoman, Nguyen Thi Hong, said that the city had accelerated the pace of projects with capital disbursement rate reaching 88.4 per cent between February 2008 and 2009 at VND13.7 trillion (US$805.8 million).
This was achieved by diverting capital from slow-paced projects to those on schedule, she added.
This resulted in the completion of several major public works and maintained the development pace of the city, Hong said.
The city has earmarked nearly VND3 trillion ($176.4 million) of the VND10.9 trillion ($641.1 million) drawn from the central budget for 166 transportation projects and 95 education and training projects.
Hong said the lack of investment capital remained difficult for the city. The city budget can only meet 57 per cent of this year's investment capital need, which has risen 42 per cent over last year to about VND19.5 trillion ($1.2 billion).
To tackle this shortage, the city has asked for advances from the central budget's unspent capital, permission to issue more bonds and use tax revenues collected in excess of the target.
Taken initiative
The city has also taken the initiative in subsidising 50 to 100 per cent of the interest on seven-year loans taken out by businesses, as against the Government's 4 per cent interest subsidy for eight months on two-year loans.
This had helped 30 businesses save over VND2.3 trillion ($137.7 million) in interest payments, said Thai Van Re, director of the city's Planning and Investment Department.
Minister Phuc hailed the credit assistance policy as being practical and beneficial to the city economy.
People's Committee Chairman Le Hoang Quan said city administration had also allocated an extra VND148 billion ($8.7 million) to the credit guarantee fund in a bid to assist small - and medium- sized enterprises in production and business activities.
The city had also launched other programmes to encourage agricultural restructuring and provide interest subsidies for farmers, he added.
The programmes, he said, had helped businesses maintain production, minimise unemployment rate and reduce products' prices.
The city has created a programme to help workers laid off as a consequence of the global recession, he said.
During the first three months of the year, more than 100 companies suspend their operations, scaled down production or went bankrupt, leaving 15,568 labourers unemployed and another 13,564 underemployed.
vietnamnet, vietnamplus
|
