An intersection in HCM City's District No 2, a part of the Southern Key Economic Region. — Photo nhandan.com.vn

HÀ NỘI — Key economic regions were urged to maximise their potential and competitive advantages as well as promote innovations to drive regional and national growth, according to the recent Government resolution on solutions to strengthen the development of key economic regions.

The resolution pointed out that key economic regions were facing a number of challenges, including economic slowdown, a lack of efficiency in coordination mechanisms among regions, poor regional linkage of industries, as well as unclear development strategies of localities in the region which caused them to fail to bring into play their available potential and a shortage of human resources.

There were also difficulties in raising resources for infrastructure development, shortages of clean land for industrial park development and attracting large-scale projects as well as pressure from increasing population, traffic congestion, home shortages and environmental pollution.

The COVID-19 pandemic was also significantly impacting the development of key economic regions with major indicators including economic growth, import-export, budget collection and tourism revenue in the first half of this year much lower than the same period in previous years.

To create momentum for economic recovery, the Government asked localities in key economic regions to make best efforts to overcome the difficulties, maximise their potential and promote innovation.

Localities must renovate thinking, encourage innovation and identify factors which would create breakthrough developments to contribute to the country’s development, the resolution said.

Priority must be placed on improving the legal environment and the regional coordination mechanism to enhance regional linkages.

The regional and national planning for 2021-30 would be developed to ensure a long-term vision, promote potential and competitive advantage and enhance regional linkages.

These regions were urged to develop policies to raise resources from the private sector and allocate appropriate sums from the State budget to develop the infrastructure system in 2021-25 period with a focus on transport, regional irrigation system, water storage, salinity control and climate change adaptation.

It was also important to identify industries and fields suitable to the competitive advantages of each region and each locality to attract investment, according to the resolution.

The Government’s statistics showed the key economic regions contributed significantly to national economic growth. The four key economic regions contributed an average of 72.95 per cent to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the 2011-19 period.

Every one per cent growth of these four key economic regions would push up GDP by 0.61 per cent. 

There are four key economic regions, including the Northern Key Economic Region, the Central Key Economic Region, the Southern Key Economic Region and the Cửu Long (Mekong River) Delta. — VNS