HÀ TĨNH — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has told the central province of  Hà Tĩnh the time is right to strive for self-financing.

He praised the province for its good growth and high disbursement of public investment capital in the first half of the year.

Addressing a working session with the Hà Tĩnh provincial Party Committee on Satuday, the PM said the province has made a strong recovery after the marine environmental incident in 2016 which left serious impacts on the local economy.

In the first six months of 2018, the province – which is considered to be the area with the most economically potential in the north central region – recorded high growth of about 33 per cent.

The industry-construction sector rose by nearly 96 per cent, making up more than 44 per cent of the local economic structure.

The total budget collection topped VNĐ6 trillion (US$262.1 million), equivalent to around 70 per cent of the estimate.

The industrial production index increased 170.9 per cent in comparison with the same period last year.

Hà Tĩnh is standing in a new position in the development map of Việt Nam, PM Phúc said.

Apart from developing industry, the province still pays great attention to agro-forestry-fishery, which, he said, is suitable for a locality with a high rate of rural and mountainous areas.

The Government leader made several suggestions for the province to achieve breakthrough developments in the future, such as focusing on three pillars of industry, agriculture and service.

The PM recommended speeding up urbanisation and shifting labour structure, noting that industrialisation should go with urbanisation, especially in coastal urban areas.

At the same time, he reminded Hà Tĩnh provincial leaders to speed-up efforts to reduce poverty, implement more effectively social welfare policies and improve access to education.

Besides facilitating the production of the Taiwan-based Hưng Nghiệp Formosa Hà Tĩnh Steel Company – which caused the marine environmental incident in four central provinces in 2016, Hà Tĩnh should maintain monitoring of the company’s operations to ensure that such environmental incidents would not recur, including the treatment of ash discharged from steel production in Formosa.

Earlier on July 20, the Government leader visited and inspected wastewater treatment and manufacturing operations at Formosa, nearly one year after his previous visit to the company in 2017. The PM hailed Formosa for building large-scale technical infrastructure worth over US$11 billion in Việt Nam – making it the largest foreign-invested project in the country, generating jobs for more than 12,000 workers and making important contributions to local budget, but warned the company that any environmental violation it committed will be heavily punished.

After the working session, PM Phúc and World Bank (WB) Country Director for Việt Nam Ousmane Dione attended the signing of a strategic co-operation framework between Hà Tĩnh and the World Bank in 2018-2022.

Under the framework, the two sides will work towards sustainable and comprehensive growth, and increase information sharing, policy dialogues and technical assistance in priority fields including agriculture and food safety, urban development and water resources, maritime strategy, environmental protection and climate change, and industrial development.

They will also work together to revise the province’s socio-economic development plan through 2020 and overall planning scheme for 2021-2030 with a vision toward 2050.

The WB has so far provided Hà Tĩnh with more than VNĐ5.7 trillion ($249 million) in grants, aid and loans for upgrading infrastructure, improving the environment and human resources, reform institutions and developing education and training. — VNS