Ho Chi Minh City wants to limit private cars from entering the center, applying fees to reduce congestion
The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has organized a workshop to gather opinions from domestic and foreign businesses on the draft Law on Special Urban Areas. Many opinions believe that the city needs a strong enough mechanism to remove institutional bottlenecks, accelerate decision-making and improve competitiveness.
According to the draft, the Special Urban Law will grant nearly 300 powers to the Ho Chi Minh City government, including more than 140 powers to the People's Council, more than 130 powers to the People's Committee and more than 20 powers to the Chairman of the City People's Committee.
In which, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council is proposed to have the right to decide to restrict private cars from entering the center, apply anti-congestion fees. The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee is granted the right to identify low emission zones to limit polluting vehicles, improve air quality and serve the goal of green transformation.
These mechanisms are expected to help Ho Chi Minh City solve traffic pressure and environmental pollution in the context that after the merger, the city is managing more than 12.8 million vehicles, including nearly 1.2 million cars, not including the number of vehicles passing by from other localities.
According to the draft project on emission control of vehicles, from the beginning of 2027, Ho Chi Minh City is expected to establish a low emission zone in the central area. At that time, cars that do not meet Euro 4 emission standards will be charged fees when entering the center.
From September 2027, motorbikes that do not meet Euro 2 emission standards will be banned from circulating in low emission zones during two peak hours from 6am to 9am and from 4pm to 7pm.
According to the expected roadmap, by 2028, all gasoline-powered motorbikes will be banned from circulating in low-emission zones. At the same time, Euro 4 cars are also banned from entering the central area during peak hours. By 2030, the scope of the low-emission zone is expected to expand to the Ring Road 1 area. The city also proposed early implementation of green transition solutions in Can Gio and Con Dao.
Proposal for a controlled policy pilot mechanism
At the workshop, many businesses highly appreciated the development of the Special Urban Law, and at the same time proposed to add more pilot mechanisms to promote innovation and increase proactiveness for the city.
Mr. Nguyen The Duy - Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, Deputy General Director of Becamex IDC - proposed to supplement regulations on applying the TOD model to national railway lines passing through Ho Chi Minh City according to mechanisms similar to those for the urban railway system. At the same time, the new law needs to allow land recovery, conversion of function of old production facilities that cause pollution and are not in accordance with planning; degraded traditional markets; works and surplus land for TOD development to optimize land value.
Representatives of VinaCapital believe that pilot mechanisms need to be designed in the direction of regional linkage instead of limiting them to the administrative boundaries of a locality.
According to this business, fields such as transportation, energy, logistics or urban development according to the TOD model are all inter-regional, and can span many provinces and cities. If the pilot mechanism is only applied within the scope of special urban areas, it will easily lead to legal breakdowns and lack of regional linkages.
Dr. Dinh Hong Ky - Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Association of Construction and Building Materials - proposed that the Special Urban Law should have a controlled policy testing mechanism, including testing according to geographical space, new industries with a limited term, controlled legal exemption mechanism and failure testing but not criminalized.
If substantive autonomy is created, fast decision-making mechanisms and a sufficiently open institutional environment for innovation, Ho Chi Minh City will have the opportunity to enter a new stage of development" - Mr. Ky said.
Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Nguyen Van Duoc said that the city is facing a great opportunity to break through when the Politburo has issued Resolution 09 on building and developing Ho Chi Minh City in the new era. Along with building the Special Urban Law, the city has a great opportunity to break through, develop quickly, sustainably and achieve the double-digit growth target.
According to Mr. Nguyen Van Duoc, the viewpoint of law-making is to inherit effective mechanisms that have been applied before such as Resolution 98, Resolution 260, Resolution 188 and refer to appropriate contents from the Capital Law.
