The senior government official made the requirement during chairing a meeting of the Council Appraising the Planning Task for the Mekong Delta Region, held at the Government Headquarters in Hanoi on May 27.
Those attending the meeting included members of the Council who are leaders of the relevant ministries and central agencies, experts and scientists in various fields, as well as representatives of international research agencies.
Speaking at the meeting, Deputy PM Dung, who is also the council’s chairman, proposed that the Ministry of Planning and Investment fully absorb the suggestions made at the event by the council’s members and experts, thereby completing the planning for Mekong Delta Region to submit it to the Government.
Agreeing to the opinions of scientists at the meeting, the deputy PM said that the Mekong Delta has a particularly important strategic position within national socio-economic development and defence-security. The region is facing multiple challenges due to the impacts of both nature and humans, so the response to climate change, sea level rise, the impacts of nature and humans are all strategic task targets of the Government, ministries, agencies and localities concerned.
Dung suggested that in conducting the regional planning, it is necessary to identify the research requirements on making the most effective use of existing infrastructure and promoting the potentials and advantages of the whole region and each locality, towards sustainable development and ensuring national defence and security.
Stressing the need to have a comprehensive assessment on both the difficulties and the advantages, especially lessons learned from the management and development of the Mekong Delta, Dung urged the related authorities to conform to the views and objectives set in the previous national and regional development plans when planning for the Mekong Delta, but must be updated themselves regularly to match the reality of the situation.
The deputy PM also required the planning to show the orientation in both hard planning (infrastructure framework with long-term vision) and soft planning (the socio-economic development plans and scenarios of sea level rise in each period), as well as identifying the priorities for the region and proposing appropriate management mechanisms.
