National Assembly Chairman Trần Thanh Mẫn and voters in HCM City on Monday. — VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — National Assembly (NA) Chairman Trần Thanh Mẫn met voters in HCM City on Monday, presenting results from the legislature’s inaugural session and fielding a wide range of constituent concerns from rising living costs and hospital overcrowding to long-stalled land disputes.

The forum was held in person in Hóc Môn Commune and streamed live to ten other communes across the city.

Voter Lê Văn Giang from Hóc Môn raised concerns shared by many in peri-urban areas: many freelance workers, elderly residents without pensions and people in unstable employment struggle to make ends meet, especially when illness or job loss strikes.

While some qualify for government assistance, he said the aid is too modest to cover basic expenses in a city where costs keep climbing.

Giang urged the NA to make eligibility criteria for social support more flexible and better suited to the realities of outer urban areas like Hóc Môn and to raise benefit levels to a meaningful minimum.

He also flagged the widening gap between wages and daily expenses, noting that service fees, fuel prices and food costs have all risen while wages for general labourers in the area have not kept pace.

He called for stronger legislative oversight of pricing for essential goods, particularly fuel, electricity and water, along with direct relief for low-income households.

On health care, Giang asked lawmakers to keep working on policies that would strengthen community-level clinics and ease the burden on major hospitals, making it easier for residents to receive care closer to home.

Another Hóc Môn voter called for expanded short-term vocational training programmes aligned with market demand, as well as better support mechanisms for small- and medium-sized businesses to create stable local employment.

Voters from Củ Chi pressed lawmakers on a persistent land-use issue: so-called suspended zoning, areas locked in development plans for years without progress, has prevented homeowners from obtaining land-use certificates.

Responding to voters, Mẫn highlighted HCM City’s strong economic performance. The city’s gross regional domestic product grew 8.27 per cent in the first quarter of 2026. State budget revenue reached an estimated VNĐ242.8 trillion (US$9.2 billion), up 16.8 per cent year on year.

Foreign direct investment surged to nearly $2.9 billion, a roughly 220 per cent jump compared with the same period last year, while nearly 20 million domestic and international tourists visited the city.

The top legislator credited the city’s momentum in part to its effective use of special policy frameworks granted through a series of NA resolutions, which have helped cut procedures and speed up investment and project approvals.

He also outlined several new social programmes that have been well received: higher gift allowances for elderly residents on milestone birthdays, free health insurance cards for seniors and students, full coverage of health insurance premiums for more than 15,000 poor and near-poor households, and free bus service for all city residents starting this May.

The Chairman announced that the Politburo has approved the drafting of a special urban law tailored specifically to HCM City. The city is working with relevant ministries on the draft legislation, which if passed would give authorities greater flexibility to address economic, social, security and governance challenges.

On land policy, Mẫn said the NA will step up oversight of stalled projects and suspended zoning cases and will look at flexible mechanisms for handling specific situations.

At its first session, the NA has passed Resolution 29, which provides a framework for addressing pre-2024 land law violations and clearing the backlog of long-delayed projects.

Responding to Giang’s concerns on living costs, the legislator said the NA’s first session has produced a sweeping revision of tax laws, covering excise taxes, value-added tax, personal income tax and corporate income tax.

These measures are designed to ease the burden on consumers and businesses, including by raising the revenue threshold at which household businesses must pay taxes and extending tax incentives for sectors like electric vehicles.

“The NA will continue to strengthen oversight of price management and inflation control and will push the Government to make the social safety net more flexible and better suited to large urban centres, particularly for freelance workers, low-income earners and elderly people without pensions,” Mẫn said.

On hospital overcrowding, Mẫn noted that the NA has revised the Law on Medical Examination and Treatment with the goal of building commune and ward-level health stations that are strong enough to handle routine care so patients do not need to travel to major hospitals.

Priorities include digitising administrative processes to reduce wait times, expanding telemedicine and remote consultations, and deploying more equipment and medical staff to primary care facilities.

On jobs and workforce training, Mẫn said the revised Employment Law, which took effect on January 1, expands unemployment insurance coverage, supports businesses in training workers and adjusts unemployment benefit levels.

In his closing remarks, the Chairman shared that on April 29 the Government had issued resolutions to eliminate 184 administrative procedures and 890 business licensing conditions, cutting compliance time and costs by half compared with 2024.

The Government has also delegated 134 procedures to local authorities and reduced the share of procedures handled at the central level to just 27 per cent. Further decentralisation is planned, he said, under the principle that local authorities should “make their own decisions, carry them out and be responsible for the results.” — VNS