The support package for economic recovery will be effective if implemented drastically

Mr. Phan Duc Hieu, Standing Member of the Economic Committee of the National Assembly

The resources of the Socio-Economic Recovery and Development Program are very large, so how can the available resources be disbursed quickly, thereby quickly recovering the economy, sir?

This is the lesson we have learned in coming up with and implementing policy solutions during the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. As we all know, there were many policies that were issued in a timely, comprehensive and complete manner. However, there were policies that are difficult to implement, even in the early stages of the pandemic. This had been highly respected by the Government.

In the process of formulating a policy package to support economic recovery and submitting it to the National Assembly for promulgation, the Government considered this in terms of great lesson for policy design.

Resolution 11/NQ-CP of the Government and a number of recent dispatches of the Prime Minister emphasized that the implementation and assignment of tasks to the heads of localities and agencies involved should fulfill the solutions that the National Assembly and the Government have promulgated. This was a point that the Government has paid great attention to in the process of implementation.

With a scale of nearly VND350 trillion, how do you think disbursing large amounts of capital as quickly as possible will create pressure on agencies from the central to the local level?

This creates great pressure, and at the same time, it shows the responsibility of the Government and related agencies in disbursing these resources. This was an overall program that requires coordination between agencies. If they still maintained the same spirit and way of doing things, it would be impossible to perform the task following the set goals and deadlines.

We often have the phrase "policy has a lag", but what is it normal and what is it unusual in the current context? Some policies are being implemented slowly, such as lending to buy computers for online learning. In your opinion, how can we fix this problem?

We must stick to the goal of the program, which is to provide timely and immediate support to the difficulties that businesses are facing but without that support, the lives of people, production and business of enterprises will be more difficult, even eliminated.

Timeliness has two sides, one side can be measured. For example, the Government's Resolution 11/NQ-CP sets out a lot of tasks that ministries, branches and agencies must perform, has a time frame and implementation results. If the right time frame does not give results then this is very unusual and we can measure. On the other hand, there are things that depend on the responsibilities of agencies, ministries and sectors.

I believe that all relevant agencies, besides implementing within the timeframe and assigned results, they must also take into account the goal of this program.

There are delays due to the pandemic. What do you think about this issue?

This mindset needs to change. We cannot blame the pandemic but we must find a way to overcome and complete the task. This would fundamentally change the way we do things. In the context of the pandemic, we must make efforts and have different ways to perform and complete the task.

The delay would create a lot of waste, not just a waste of resources.

First of all, delays in implementation would lead to the resources being slow to realize, which greatly impacts the benefits,

Secondly, this program aims to remove difficulties and obstacles of enterprises to restore production and have a basis for development.

After designing and approving the fiscal and monetary policy package, the National Assembly emphasized timeliness, even gave a specific time frame and emphasized absorption capacity.

With this Economic Recovery Program, how will implementation have to be accelerated from the beginning of the year?

First of all, we must re-emphasize the importance of the program for the good of the country.

Accordingly, the spirit of urgency must be deployed from all levels and sectors, not only the National Assembly, the Government, and the Prime Minister. This spirit must be spread to each person.

Secondly, the spirit of urgency and determination must be expressed in action, not in words. For example, in promulgating their action plans, ministries and sectors might find that the Government's timeframe has many tasks that have not been defined, they should define their own framework, and set goals earlier than the Government's framework.

All tasks of the Government and society must be carried out with a new spirit, which is urgency.

In this context, the requirements are very drastic and urgent, so it is very important to promote creativity and initiative in implementation.

Sometimes our supervision has to change. Currently, we monitor the process, but in some cases, we had to change our mindset to monitor the results and the effectiveness of the work to promote creativity.