HANOI: Vietnam is planning to reduce the number of provinces by half and slash commune-level authorities by up to 70 per cent, further expanding a streamlining drive that aims to cut billions of dollars from state budgets.
The cost-cutting measures have already seen the number of government ministries and agencies chopped from 30 to 22, and one in five public sector jobs will be cut over the next five years.
On Tuesday (March 18), a statement on the government's website cited Interior Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra as saying the merging and reduction of provinces is scheduled before August this year.
The plan "would reduce the number of provincial-level administrative units by about 50 per cent and reduce the number of grassroots-level administrative units by about 60-70 per cent", the statement said.
Communist-ruled Vietnam, a one-party state, is currently divided into 63 major cities and provinces, under which there are around 700 administrative units at the district level and more than 10,000 at the communal level.
The government announced earlier this month that district-level authorities would be eliminated.
Almost two million people worked in the public sector as of 2022, according to the government, which announced this year that 100,000 people would be made redundant or offered early retirement as part of the bureaucratic reforms.
Tra said so far more than 22,000 jobs had been cut, according to state-controlled news site VNExpress.
This is a "real revolution in the entire political system", she was quoted as saying.
It is unclear if there will be further job cuts as part of the provincial mergers, or which provinces will be affected.
Vietnam's top leader To Lam, who last year became Communist Party general secretary following the death of his predecessor, has said that state agencies should not be "safe havens for weak officials".
"If we want to have a healthy body, sometimes we must take bitter medicine and endure pain to remove tumours," Lam said in December.
However, there are fears the bureaucratic reforms could cause short-term chaos, with reports surfacing of logjams in provincial offices as administrative procedures slow.
Vietnam's foreign ministry has denied any impact on the investment and business environment. - AFP
