Deputy Prime Minister Trinh Dinh Dung chairs the teleconference with localities to review the implementation of the planning law.

He made the request at a teleconference with localities on July 15 to reviewthe implementation of the law which took effect in January.

Dung underlined the significance of the law as its covers many economic sectorsand many new concepts are introduced for the first time, including the 10-yearoverall national planning scheme.

The law is also considered an important tool to help the Government,ministries, sectors and localities set development targets and strategies,ensuring comprehensive and sustainable socio-economic development and effectiveand economical exploitation of resources.

To implement the law effectively, the Government issued a resolution earlierthis year guiding tasks that ministries, sectors and localities need toundertake, including increasing information dissemination to raise awareness ofthe law, organising training, issuing documents guiding the implementation andreviewing existing planning work to ensure it’s in line with the law, accordingto Dung.

However, the law has been slowly deployed due to obstacles and differentunderstandings of new concepts, said the Deputy PM.

Major obstacles include the adjustment of planning work for 2021-30 as the lawfails to cover all planning that needs to be adjusted locally, according torepresentatives from localities.

Another difficulty relates to the planning steps. The law regulates that thecentral-level planning serves as a foundation for planning activities at lowerlevels, meaning the planning work of ministries, sectors and localities canonly be done when overall national planning is made. This would mean planningat lower levels would take years to complete, they said.

The regulation aims to ensure comprehensive planning but it is difficult toimplement, they added.

Deputy PM Dung asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment to work withministries and agencies to guild the implementation of the law.

Regarding local adjustments of planning from now to 2020, he proposed theNational Assembly Standing Committee allow authorised agencies to decide theimplementation of urgent investment projects for socio-economic developmentwhich will later be updated by new planning.

Concerning planning works that were done and examined before the law tookeffect but were not approved, he proposed the National Assembly StandingCommittee to allow these planning works to be approved.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment was also asked to set upinterdisciplinary teams to help localities and sectors remove difficulties.-VNA