Dak Lak Province is speeding up the planning process, striving that by the 2nd quarter of 2022, it will submit to the Government Dak Lak Province Planning for the 2021-2030 period, with vision to 2050.

Connecting with Central Highlands Region Planning

According to the Department of Planning Management - Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), the planning boundary of the Central Highlands includes 05 provinces of Kon Tum, Gia Lai, Dak Lak, Dak Nong, and Lam Dong. The total area is 54,508 km2 (16.5% of the whole country) and the total population is 5.871 million people (6.2% of the whole country). The Central Highlands is an important area in terms of security and defense, the total length of the border line with Laos and Cambodia is 554 km long. The planning process will facilitate the Central Highlands to make fundamental changes in socio-economic space, gradually affirming its important strategic position for the whole country.

The orientation to arrange the spatial distribution of the Central Highlands will be based on 3 approaches: approach from potentials and advantages to determine development goals and orientations; approach from the country’s common goal to orient the development of key national sectors and fields; approach in the direction of creating breakthrough development, non-sequential, with new development thinking.

5 Central Highlands provinces need to pay attention to internal and external linkages in the planning process

In the process of planning for the characteristics of the Central Highlands, the provinces should prioritize the integrated approach, with clear planning vision, through specific development orientation; distribute development space suitable to the conditions of each province; have specific action plans and programs; build consensus among stakeholders; and Identify key priority projects/programs to promote socio-economic development- Department of Planning Management emphasized.

Currently, Dak Lak Province has focused on directing agencies and departments to implement provincial planning in accordance with the requirements of the MPI and the provisions of the Law on Planning.

Dak Lak Province Planning will synchronously connect with the Central Highlands Region Planning

Accordingly, the People’s Committee of the Province established a Steering Committee for the Province’s Planning; assigned the Department of Planning and Investment to be the province’s planning agency. The Department of Planning and Investment also established a Management Board to perform the task of planning in accordance with regulations.

The People’s Committee of the Province issued Plan no. 6425/KH-UBND on July 15th, 2021 on implementing Dak Lak Province Planning for the 2021-2030 period, with vision to 2050.

On that basis, the People’s Committee of the Province held 02 conferences to report on the province’s planning to agree on the guidelines, viewpoints, and development orientations of Dak Lak Province in the 2021-2030 period, with vision to 2050.

It is expected that by the end of November 2021, the People’s Committee of the Province would finalize the draft report to submit to the Provincial Party Standing Committee to agree on the guidelines, viewpoints, and development orientations of Dak Lak Province in the 2021-2030 period, with vision to 2020. 2050. On that basis, the province will continue to implement the contents of the province’s planning as planned.

Key orientation proposal

At the online conference on planning work with the provinces of the Central Highlands, Standing Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of the Province Nguyen Tuan Ha said the province had paid special attention to the planning. The process of implementing the planning has received a lot of support from the consultant, ministries, and central agencies.

In addition, the Provincial Party Standing Committee invited experts to consult the development orientation planning of Dak Lak Province in the 2021-2030 period, with vision to 2050.

Some issues arising in the process of implementing Dak Lak Province planning were the key developments proposed by the consulting unit on renewable energy development and urban economy, it will be difficult to implement due to electricity planning VIII recently issued by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Dak Lak’s synchronous urban planning combined with economic restructuring

Therefore, Dak Lak Province proposed the Ministry of Planning and Investment to orientate hard criteria for the Central Highlands provinces regarding digital economy and transformation, depending on the conditions and potentials to have a basis for a methodical and easy-to-implement planning and practical calculations, Mr. Nguyen Tuan Ha suggested.

Also, according to the leaders of the People’s Committee, in order to ensure the synchronization in the process of national, regional,  and provincial planning, Central ministries and branches were requested to soon issue documents on guiding views, goals, objectives, development orientations, and orientations in spatial arrangement and allocation for national and regional areas according to Directive no. 30/CT-TTg dated July 27th, 2020 of the Prime Minister and Decree no. 119/NQ-CP dated September 27th, 2021 of the Government to serve as a basis for localities to implement the province’s planning.

In the process of making plans for the development of sectors and fields, departments/sectors/localities set requirements to concretize and detail the projects of the province to be invested in during the 2021-2030 planning period. However, in reality, the investment portfolio of infrastructure projects in the planning period is very large and at the time of planning, the exact location and investment scale of the project could not be determined. Therefore, it is necessary to have the unified guidance of ministries and central branches on the level of detail and scale of projects to be appropriately included in the investment portfolio of the planning.

In order to complete the province’s planning on schedule, the People’s Committee requested the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to soon provide guidance on specifying which agencies are assigned to take charge of forming the province’s planning and preparing land distribution and allotment; regularly update information related to national, regional, and provincial planning on the national planning information system so that localities can actively research, refer to, and apply to the planning work of their locality, especially documents related to the process of appraising and approving provincial planning.