Permanent Secretariat Tran Cam Tu has signed into issuance the Politburo’s conclusion on key content related to reorganizing and restricting the apparatus of the political system in 2025.

The Politburo has assigned the Government’s Party Committee to coordinate with the Central Organization Commission, the Party Committee under the National Assembly, party committees at different levels, and relevant party organizations to consider continuing the apparatus streamlining by eliminating the intermediary administrative level (district level), as well as merging certain provincial-level administrative units.

According to the National Assembly Standing Committee, provincial-level administrative units must meet criteria in terms of area, population, and the number of district-level administrative units. Mountainous provinces’ administrative units need to cover an area of 8,000 square kilometers and have a population of 0.9 million at minimum; while the other provinces must have an area of 5,000 square kilometers and population of 1.4 million at least. Centrally governed cities must have an area of 1,500 square kilometers and population of 1 million. All provinces/cities must have 9 districts or more.

Currently, 10 cities/provinces do not meet the standards on area, population and district-level administrative units. Bac Kan has the smallest population, only 0.3 million; Dak Nong 0.68 million; and Tuyen  Quang has 0.8 million. Meanwhile, HaNam, Ninh Binh, Ninh Thuan, Ba Ria – Vung Tau, Hau Giang, Vinh Long, and Bac Lieu fail to meet all three criteria.

Most VietNamNet readers have agreed with the idea that it is necessary to cut the number of provincial administrative units by merging provinces/cities which cannot satisfy the standards on area, population and district-level administrative units as required by the National Assembly Standing Committee.

"The current regular expenditures from the state budget are too large, which leads to restricted spending on infrastructure and socio-economic development," Pham Thu Thuy, a VietNamNet reader said.

Agreeing with the idea on city and province merger, Tran Van Chien, another reader, believes that merging provinces and cities will reduce expenditures for the administrative apparatus, and savings from administrative unit cuts can be used to develop remote and mountainous areas. 

Nguyen Duy Minh, 39, a civil engineer, commented that there are too many cities/provinces in Vietnam, compared with big countries such as Russia, the US and China. He believes that it would be better to cut the number of these localities to 38 as previously designed.

Mini surveys have found that people applaud the idea of cutting the number of cities/provinces. In the current period of strong digital transformation, people don’t have to travel long distances for administrative procedures, as they can follow formalities via the internet. Leaders also don’t have to travel a lot, because they can sit at the office to preside over online meetings.

Hung Dinh, an office worker, thinks that Vietnam should have fewer than 20 cities/provinces, and that it would be better to remove the district-level administrative units.

China, a country with large area, has only 34 provinces/cities, while the US has 50 states. Meanwhile, Vietnam, which is much smaller, has 63 cities/provinces, which incurs unnecessary budget spending and impacts governance and management.

Giang Le, a university student, said she hopes the cut in the number of cities/provinces is made immediately to get resources for investment and development. However, she stressed that the process of cutting administrative units needs to be associated with administrative formality simplification, so as to gather resources for investment and development.

“Problems and challenges may arise during the first days of restructuring, but if the streamlining succeeds, the administrative apparatus would be less burdened,” Le said.

She added that merging cities/provinces and eliminating intermediate district-level administrative units is an accurate policy aligned with the nation's developmental trends.

She proposed enhancing application of information technology and science in management and administration to enable efficient operations of a three-tiered government.

Supporting the merger directive recently concluded by the Political Bureau, former Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nguyen Tien Dinh suggested it might be appropriate to merge some provinces, bringing the total back to 35-38 provinces and cities as before.

Merging some provinces is inevitable because the country is undergoing a revolution to streamline the administrative apparatus, and any changes must be holistic and synchronized, ensuring that the system is "compact, strong, efficient, and effective."

Thu Hang