People look at the map showing the Hà Nội City’s master plan for 2030. Accessing information is a fundamental civic right as it creates public trust in State policies, NA deputies said yesterday.— VNA/VNS Photo Tuấn Anh

HÀ NÔI – National Assembly deputies yesterday agreed on the essentials of a law on information access rights during their ongoing session in Hà Nội.

At the session, deputies said they considered access to information as a fundamental civic and human right as it creates public trust in State policies, especially those on international integration.

“Information disclosure will ensure transparency and openness in the fight against corruption and miscarriages of justice. It is the key solution to the principle of people knowing, people doing and people checking,” said deputy Trần Ngọc Vinh from Hải Phòng City.

“The draft law should therefore identify who is responsible for information disclosure in line with the 2013 Constitution,” he said.

Deputy Trương Trọng Nghĩa from HCM City agreed, adding that information recipients should include both Vietnamese people and foreigners living inside and outside of Việt Nam

“Many of them have business plans in Việt Nam and rely on information to make their decisions. The law should deal with information access rights for overseas Vietnamese and those without nationality,” he said.

Meanwhile, many deputies said the law needed to require state agencies to be responsible for providing information about or relating to their activities and information under their holdings.

Deputy Trần Thị Diệu Thúy from HCM City suggested a supplement to the law, which would require the offices of the People’s Supreme Court and the People’s Supreme Procuracy to provide information under their holding.

Socio-economic development discussed

Earlier the same day, the National Assembly reviewed the implementation of the socio-economic development tasks in 2015 and worked out future tasks for the next five years.

Over the past five years, the rate of inflation was controlled, the macro economy stable, the Consumer Price Index reduced to 0.6 percent in 2015 from 18.13 percent in 2011, credit quality has gradually improved, and exchange rate and foreign exchange reserves were basically stable.

Regarding the challenges facing Việt Nam in its process of international integration, the deputies said that the government needed to take practical measures to develop high-quality human resources and transportation to raise the economy’s competitiveness in the 2016-20 period.

While discussing the 2016-20 land use plan, National Assembly deputies expressed their concern about the impacts of climate change on production and people’s lives in the Central, Central Highland and Mekong Delta areas.

The deputies stressed the need to develop forests as a long-term solution to help prevent drought and saline intrusion.

“The present policy on forest protection and development has not met the urgent demand in the environment and the challenges of climate change. It is essential to increase forest coverage for environmental protection and national socio-economic development,” said deputy Hoàng Ngọc Dũng from Sơn La Province.

“In the next term, there should be changes in the laws and policies on forest protection and development,” he said. — VNS