On November 21, the Ministry of Home Affairs issued Official Letter No. 10988 promoting the policies and guidelines of the Party and State.
The Ministry of Home Affairs said that recently, on social networking sites, there has been false and inaccurate information about continuing to reorganize administrative units at all levels;
There is information spreading across the country that 34 provinces and cities will be merged down to 16 provinces and cities, causing many people and officials and civil servants to panic.
In recent times, our country has carried out a revolution in arranging and reorganizing administrative units at all levels. This major policy has been studied by the Party Central Committee, the National Assembly, and the Government, thoroughly discussed many aspects and reached high consensus before implementation.
The arrangement of administrative units in 2025 is not only arranged in terms of organization, apparatus, and staff but also decentralized in terms of authority, rearranged administrative units, allocated resources, and created development space.
The goal is to build a Government in the direction of being closer to the people, closer to the people, and better serving the people; at the same time, opening up a new perspective in the country's development with a long-term vision, at least for the next 100 years.
With the drastic participation of the entire political system, from July 1, 2025, our country has 34 provinces and cities, 3,321 communes, wards, special zones and a 2-level local government model (including provincial and commune levels) that have officially operated in all localities.
"Currently, the Party Central Committee, the National Assembly and the Government do not have a policy to continue implementing the arrangement and merger of administrative units, but require the entire political system to continue to care for and create a model of local government at both levels to operate effectively and efficiently, serving the people better" - the Ministry of Home Affairs said.
On June 16, 2025, the National Assembly passed the Law on Organization of Local Government No. 72/2025/QH15 with new regulations on the organization of local government at 2 levels.
To implement this Law, the Ministry of Home Affairs is assigned to develop and submit to competent authorities to issue documents guiding the Law, including the Resolution of the National Assembly Standing Committee on standards for administrative units (replacing Resolution No. 1211/2016/UBTVQH13 dated May 25, 2016), the Government's Decree on classifying administrative units and the Decree guiding the collection of public opinions on the establishment, disolution, merger, division, adjustment of boundaries and renaming of administrative units (replacing Decree No. 54/2018/ND-CP dated April 16, 2018).
The draft dossier of the Decree guiding the collection of public opinions on the establishment, dissolution, merger, division, adjustment of boundaries and renaming of administrative units sent to the Ministry of Justice for appraisal does not have an appendix attached to the list of arrangement and merger from 34 provinces and cities to 16 provinces and cities as on the social networking sites that are spreading.
The development of the above documents to implement the new provisions of the Law when organizing a 2-level local government model, promptly replacing the provisions in current legal documents on standards and criteria for classifying administrative units has no longer been consistent with the current situation of administrative units at all levels after the 2025 arrangement and the requirements for national development, improving the effectiveness of modern government administration, serving the people.
The Ministry of Home Affairs affirmed that this is not for the purpose of continuing to arrange and merge administrative units at all levels as false information has recently spread on social networks.
