Hanoi seeks public opinion on enforcement of 2024 Capital Law

Authorities and lawmakers in Hanoi are seeking public input in drafting sub-laws to put the amended Capital Law into practice, a workshop heard on July 25.

Hanoi's districts as seen from the Red River. Photo: Pham Hung/The Hanoi Times

Phan Truong Thanh, Head of Planning and Finance under the Hanoi Department of Transport, said the Hanoi People's Committee and other government agencies were working together to draft instructions to put the law into practice soon.

"We hope that scientists, specialists, people and businesses will give us ideas so that we can soon draft documents to implement the law," he told the workshop, hosted by the Kinh te Do thi (Economic & Urban) newspaper.

According to Nguyen Cong Anh, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Department of Justice, the city authorities are responsible for specifying 52 issues in the amended Capital Law, while the government is responsible for six.

"The amended Capital Law provides for a strong delegation of powers from the central government to the Hanoi administration," Anh said.

The law devotes a chapter to the organization of the city administration, from the People's Committee, the People's Council, to the city agencies and the district government.

Anh cited several topics in the new law that Hanoi will be responsible for managing, such as the transit-oriented development (TOD) model for public transportation, rural development, social security and health care, science and technology, and ways to raise funds for the city's development projects.

Nguyen Hoang Hiep, Deputy Director of the Institute of Information and Applied Economics, said the amended Capital Law gives Hanoi more autonomy to make new changes in the coming period.

The amended law provides Hanoi with a mechanism to utilize and train talent, and must have a general direction for digital transformation, he said.

Specialists in the workshop. Photo: Lai Tan/The Hanoi Times

He added that the city needs to allocate sufficient funds for digital transformation and the development of a data center.

"The fund should not only be channeled to digital transformation in administrative reform, but also to businesses involved in it," Hiep said.

Transportation expert Phan Truong Thanh echoed these sentiments, saying that the amended Capital Law gives Hanoi a special, superior authority to realize its projects in the midst of existing financial difficulties.

The law allows Hanoi to make local adjustments to overall development plans approved by the Prime Minister.

"Now the adjustment will be less time-consuming. Before, it took a long time (12 months) for Hanoi to get approval from the government and ministries for local projects," he said.

With the latest updates, the Capital Law 2024 is an important legal framework for Hanoi to meet the expectations of the whole nation, said Deputy Editor-in-chief Nguyen Xuan Khanh of Kinh te Do thi (Economic & Urban) newspaper.

The approval of the Capital Law 2024 is the great news for both authorities and people of Hanoi, which has the aspiration for the city's further development in the near future, he said.

"I hope the breakthrough solutions in the Capital Law 2024 will remove existing bottlenecks and difficulties and pave the way for Hanoi to grow and deserve to be the political, economic, cultural and social center of the region and the country."