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The Government held a monthly meeting in Hanoi on June 6 with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung in the chair. Apart from reviewing socio-economic situation in May and the first five months of the year, Cabinet members discussed solutions for controlling traffic accidents.
Mr Dung pointed out causes for an increase in traffic accidents in recent times, including poor State management and undue attention as well as ineffective implementation of consistent solutions.
To control traffic accidents, the PM underlined the need to enhance information dissemination to raise public awareness about the traffic law, with the strong determination and participation of the entire political system.
“Each ranking official, Party member and worker must be the pioneer in observing the traffic law,” said Mr Dung.
In addition, he said severe punishments must be handed out to law breakers, particularly those who drive recklessly, join races, exceed speed limits, get drunk while driving on the road, and carry no driving license. He asked the Ministry of Transport and the National Traffic Safety Committee to finalise the national scheme on traffic order and safety till 2010 with a focus on stricter punishments to make the scheme more feasible.
He instructed relevant agencies to deliberately deal with “black spots” on the road and violations of traffic safety corridors and not allow means of transport that do not meet technical specifications to hit the road.
He required the Ministry of Transport to adopt specific measures to monitor the driver training system and build criteria for coach drivers.
“Big cities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City must consider reducing private means of transport, and the Government will soon draft a resolution on urgent solutions for controlling traffic accidents,” stressed the PM.
A Government report delivered by Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc showed that Vietnam still maintained steady economic growth in May and the first five months of the year. Industrial production value grew by 17 percent from a year ago while export value hit US$18 billion, up 18.4 percent.
By the end of May, footwear, seafood and coffee exports surpassed the US$1 billion mark each while two other export staples fetching more than US$2 billion were crude oil and garments.
However, the consumer price index in the past five months rose by 4.3 percent. The disbursement of investment capital for projects using State budget, Government bond sales and official development assistance (ODA) was slow going.
Minister Phuc quoted foreign financial experts as saying Vietnam’s economic growth in the first half of this year is estimated at more than 8 percent.
Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said to achieve an annual growth rate of 8.5 percent a great deal of effort must be put in by all ministries, departments and localities in the next 6 months of the year.
PM urged them to strictly follow the set plans, overcome difficulties and accelerate the implementation of major capital construction projects. He said he will preside over a meeting on the disbursement of financial capital on June 10.
The PM asked ministries and agencies to strictly control the operation of the securities market, banking services and market prices, and to prevent petroleum prices from soaring beyond control.
The Prime Minister asked relevant ministries and agencies to push through administration reform and anti-corruption activities and accelerate the investigation and trial of some serious cases. Ministries, departments and localities must regularly report on implementation of administration reform and anti-corruption activities.
The PM also asked the Ministry of Education and Training to pay due attention to human resources training and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to devise effective measures to curb the spread of bird flu. The Ministry of Health and Ministry of Culture and Information must step up the propaganda campaign on the prevention of flu type A H5N1 in humans.
PM Dung criticized the Ministry of Post and Telematics for slowly dealing with underwater cable theft and demanded the ministry strictly deal with the problem to ensure international communications and information security.
During the meeting, Cabinet members discussed a draft law on managing and using State property, a draft decree on implementation of the HIV/AIDS prevention law and a draft decree on retirement age and extended working time for government officials.
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