On the afternoon of June 5, the National Assembly Standing Committee listened to a report on the review of the project to reorganize provincial-level administrative units (DVHC) in 2025.
Chairman of the National Assembly's Law and Justice Committee Hoang Thanh Tung said that according to the submission and project, the Government proposed to arrange 52 provincial-level administrative units (including 4 centrally-run cities and 48 provinces) to form 23 new provincial-level administrative units.
The arrangement of 11 provincial-level administrative units is not carried out, including 10 provincial-level administrative units that have ensured standards on natural area and population size according to regulations and 1 province that has not yet ensured standards but has a special factor of Cao Bang province.
After the arrangement, the whole country has 34 provincial-level administrative units including 6 centrally-run cities and 28 provinces, a decrease of 29 provinces (equivalent to 46.03%).
Through the review, the plans for arranging provincial-level administrative units proposed by the Government have closely followed and ensured compliance with the instructions and orientations of competent authorities, all 23/23 provincial-level administrative units formed after the arrangement have ensured standards on natural area and population size according to regulations.
The project also proposed a number of principle contents on the plan to reorganize the apparatus, arrange cadres, civil servants, public employees and resolve headquarters and public assets at administrative units to implement the arrangement. The Law and Justice Committee basically agrees with the Government's proposal.
At the review session, the Law and Justice Committee requested the Government to provide more information on the basis for determining the ADUs formed after the arrangement as ADUs in mountainous and highland areas.
Up to now, the Government has reported on the acceptance and explanation of these contents and the Law and Justice Committee basically agreed with the content of the Government's report.
Regarding the determination of provincial-level administrative units formed after the arrangement of applying the criteria for evaluating mountainous and highland provinces by province with the same name, it is recommended to consider carefully because according to the instructions and application of criteria to determine mountainous and highland administrative units, mountainous provinces are provinces with 2/3 of the districts being mountainous districts.
Therefore, when implementing the merger of provinces, including mountainous and highland provinces, it is recommended to base on the above criteria to determine whether the province formed after the arrangement is a mountainous or highland province or not.
From there, to apply appropriate assessment standards for administrative units and as a basis for continuing to implement regimes and policies for mountainous and highland provinces while there are no new regulations or classification methods for this content.
According to the previous plan, these Resolutions will take effect simultaneously from July 1, 2025.
However, based on the direction of competent authorities on accelerating progress and creating favorable conditions for localities to implement, the Law and Justice Committee proposed that the National Assembly Standing Committee consider and report to the National Assembly for adjustment to the 9th Session program so that the Resolution on the arrangement of provincial-level administrative units can be passed earlier (perhaps on June 16 or 17, 2025) and take effect immediately.
