On the third day of the third extraordinary session of the 15th National Assembly, on the morning of February 14, the National Assembly listened to the Minister of Industry and Trade, authorized by the Prime Minister, present a Report on specific mechanisms and policies for investment in the construction of Ninh Thuan nuclear power projects; Chairman of the National Assembly's Committee for Science, Technology and Environment presented a Report on the specific mechanisms and policies for investment in the construction of Ninh Thuan nuclear power projects; Discussion in the hall on the draft Law on Government Organization (amended).
Presenting the Proposal on specific mechanisms and policies for investment in the construction of Ninh Thuan nuclear power projects, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien said that, implementing Resolution No. 174/2024/QH15 of the National Assembly, which includes the content of continuing to implement the investment policy for the Ninh Thuan nuclear power project, the Government has established a Steering Committee for the construction of the nuclear power plant headed by the Prime Minister in Decision No. 72/QD-TTg dated January 10, 2025 to direct ministries and branches to urgently deploy and soon put the Ninh Thuan nuclear power project into operation to meet the electricity demand for the country's socio-economic development.
The Steering Committee held the first meeting on January 15, 2025 and the second meeting on February 4, 2025 and agreed to put it into operation in 2030 to ensure security of power supply for economic and social development.
The Minister of Industry and Trade also proposed that each year, the additional central budget aims to give the Ninh Thuan provincial budget 70% of the increased revenue from the implementation of the nuclear power plant project.
According to the Minister, the reason for the proposal is based on the provisions of Clause 4, Article 59 of the State Budget Law stipulating that the central budget allocates a part of the central budget revenue increase at a rate of no more than 30% from the revenue divided between the central budget and the provincial budget, and at the same time, Article 35 stipulates that the central budget revenue receives 100% such as value added tax collected from imported goods; export tax, import tax; special consumption tax collected from imported goods; environmental protection tax collected from imported goods...
The total demand for public investment capital to invest in developing socio-economic infrastructure in the period of 2026 - 2030 is expected to be about 25,000 billion VND. While the province's budget revenue is an average of VND5,000 - 5,500 billion per year, it will be difficult to balance investment in the province's socio-economic development.
To encourage and motivate localities to effectively carry out the task of collecting the state budget in the area; at the same time, create necessary additional resources for the province to proactively invest in implementing important projects on socio-economic infrastructure, the Provincial People's Committee proposed an annual mechanism, a supplementary central budget with the goal of giving the provincial budget 70% of the revenue from implementing nuclear power plant projects such as value added tax; import-export tax, special consumption tax; environmental protection tax... is necessary.
In addition, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien also proposed that Ninh Thuan province be allowed to re-borrow ODA capital and foreign preferential loans with a total outstanding loan balance not exceeding 90% of the provincial budget revenue according to decentralization.
This content is based on Clause 6, Article 7 of the State Budget Law, Ninh Thuan province is in the group of localities with outstanding loans not exceeding 20% of the budget revenue received according to the decentralization. Currently, the province is proposing to mobilize ODA capital and foreign preferential loans for the period 2025 - 2030 for 7 projects, with a total estimated investment of VND 7,810 billion, of which the need for re-borrowing is VND 2,654 billion. The maximum outstanding debt of the local budget and the remaining borrowing limit of the province by the end of 2024 is 144.751 billion VND.
In order for the province to have more room to borrow and in line with the context of promoting the decentralization mechanism for local authorities to proactively mobilize resources, instead of support from the central budget, propose a mechanism to allow the province to increase the outstanding loan balance of the provincial budget to 90%, expected to borrow about 9,000 billion VND in the 2026-2030 period, basically meeting the need to mobilize resources to invest in developing the province's important socio-economic infrastructure system.
