President of the Planning and Development Institute and former Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, Đặng Huy Đông. — Photo courtesy of the National Assembly Portal

The average area of Việt Nam’s cities and provinces is expected to increase as the country looks into merging several of its localities, following the request of the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Communist Party of Việt Nam.

Đặng Huy Đông, President of the Planning and Development Institute and former Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, spoke to Voice of Vietnam (VOV) about the impacts of this rearrangement in terms of traffic infrastructure development.

How can merging provincial and municipal administrative units benefit the development of traffic infrastructure?

In my opinion, [the mergers] will bring positive opportunities in several aspects.

In the past, when we planned for regional traffic connectivity improvements, local areas which benefited more from these investments would be more proactive than others. The funding came from the State budget, but these local authorities would make more efforts in land clearance. However, localities with fewer benefits from this infrastructure were less enthusiastic, leading to slow progress in land clearance.

For example, there was a stretch of road passing through Nam Định Province to reach Thái Bình Province, including a section linking Nam Định City to Tân Đệ Bridge situated between the two localities.

This project took years to complete on the Nam Định side, while the construction in Thái Bình had been finished long ago. Nam Định made minimal efforts because it did not benefit much from this road section.

The upcoming mergers of provincial administrative units are expected to address this type of issue. The rearrangement will also allow for the adjustment of spatial planning and traffic connectivity for local socio-economic development.

I believe that this adjustment will bring better results in terms of investment, operations, budget costs and overall efficiency.

Increasing the average area of a province is expected to boost traffic infrastructure development. — VNA/VNS Photo

Regarding investment effectiveness, how will merging cities and provinces help reduce small-scale and scattered investment projects?

Reducing small-scale and scattered investments is an issue to be addressed at both the central and local levels. Projects using the state budget include national, regional, and interprovincial routes, but they have encountered problems with untimely and insufficient funding allocation.

Meanwhile, too many plans for regional and interprovincial roads would lead to a lack of funds. Therefore, the administrative rearrangement will allow focus on the main large routes connecting major provinces.

Regarding local routes using local budgets, investments have been scattered because every locality has limited investment funding, which forces them to make small, separate investments. This situation has led to unfinished and delayed projects, causing wasteful investments and slow realisation of project benefits.

The administrative replanning increases the scale of a province, coupled with priority funding from the state budget and better prioritisation of infrastructure projects, which will help accelerate investments and ensure the construction schedule. Combined with new approaches and mechanisms, I believe that small-scale, scattered investments will be greatly reduced.

What are the other advantages that the mergers of cities and provinces can bring?

The mergers will certainly reduce unhealthy local competition and increase the collective benefits. In particular, I see great opportunities for us to increase connectivity through inter-regional railways.

The benefits have not been very visible in smaller provinces. However, with larger areas [after municipal and provincial mergers], a railway network that improves linkages between localities, regions and across the country will have great impacts when demands increase.

A larger province can also facilitate mobilising investments for railway connectivity to boost public transport use, which is a very good thing. — VNS