At the conference to summarize the work in the first 6 months of the year and deploy key tasks for the last 6 months of 2026 of the Ministry of Home Affairs on July 9, Director of the Department of Local Government, Ministry of Home Affairs Phan Trung Tuan said that recently, public opinion and localities were very concerned about whether to continue arranging, adjusting, and reorganizing commune and ward levels.
Regarding this issue, according to Mr. Tuan, the report of the Government Party Committee sent to the Central Steering Committee and the Politburo has stated this content. "The arrangement of communes and wards will be discussed, studied and carefully considered by the Central Government before concluding to deploy and implement," Mr. Tuan informed.
In fact, in the process of summarizing opinions from localities, at the time of organizing the National Preliminary Review Conference on the 2-level local government model and the overall model of the political system, the Local Government Department proactively studied this issue.
After the conclusion of the Central Government, the Local Government Department will advise the Ministry of Home Affairs to report to the Government for timely guidance on the arrangement of commune levels.
Regarding the expected plan and direction of the Central Government on arranging and adjusting some commune-level administrative units in the near future, Mr. Phan Trung Tuan said that at the preliminary conference, General Secretary and President To Lam had orientations on adjusting and possibly arranging some commune-level administrative units that are still small in scale and do not meet the standards and criteria as stipulated in the Resolution of the National Assembly Standing Committee on standards of administrative units.
In the list of 705 commune-level administrative units that have not met the standards, Mr. Phan Trung Tuan said that there will be special cases related to borders, remote areas, complex terrain, and historical, traditional, and cultural factors.
Therefore, there are many units in the above list that may not be in the case of arrangement as in the 2023-2025 period. For the remaining small units that do not meet the standards of natural area and population size, localities can proactively study adjustments according to regulations," Mr. Tuan emphasized.
Thus, after the Central Government has a conclusion, the Government or the Ministry of Home Affairs has guidance on implementation, localities will proactively propose.
The spirit according to the initial orientation of the Central Government is that it will not be a simultaneous arrangement, but depending on the conditions and specific characteristics of each area, each locality can make specific proposals," the Director of the Local Government Department informed.
In addition, competent authorities have oriented the construction of core and key communes and wards to create new growth poles for provinces and cities. Mr. Tuan cited the fact that the General Secretary and President once mentioned the establishment of socialist wards. Therefore, localities need to proactively research from the reality of each locality.
