The Government Party Committee, at its meeting held on March 11 under the chair of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, who is also its Secretary, focused discussion on a draft plan on reorganization of local administrative units.

The Prime Minister was quoted by the Government News as stating at the meeting that the reorganization of local administrative units targets to create new development space and bring into full play of unique advantages of each locality.

Under the draft plan, local administrations will be reorganized into two levels (provincial and grassroots levels) instead of current three levels (provincial, district and communal levels) and merged, to create a two-tier local governance to ensure streamlined, efficient and effective operations.

With this plan, the number of provinces and centrally-run cities will reduce by about 50 per cent while the number of grassroots-level administrative units will reduce by 60-70 per cent.

At present, Vietnam is divided into 63 provinces and centrally-run cities with 705 districts and 10,595 communes/wards.

The draft plan will be submitted to the Politburo and the Secretariat prior to March 27, 2025 and to the Party Central Committee before April 7, 2025 for consideration and approval.

Over the past few months, central agencies have been restructured with an aim to save budget for investment and to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the State apparatus.

For Party agencies, the Party Central Committee decided to end the operation of the Central Commission for External Relations and transfer the its functions and tasks to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Party Central Committee also decided to end the operation of the Party Committee of the Central Agencies Bloc, the Party Committee of the Central Enterprises Bloc, the Party delegations and Party executive committees at central and provincial levels.

The Party Central Committee decided to establish four Party Committees directly under the Party Central Committee: The Party Committee of the Central Party Agencies; the Party Committee of the National Assembly, the Party Committee of the Government, the Party Committee of the Fatherland Front of Viet Nam and central mass organizations.

Under the Party Central Committee’s decision, the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Information and Education and its Commission for Mass Mobilization have been merged into the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Information, Education and Mass Mobilization.

The Party Central Committee decided to supplement new functions and tasks to its Economic Commission and change the commission’s name to the Party Central Committee’s Policy and Strategy Commission.

For the legislative branch, the National Assembly ended the operation of the Committee for External Relations and transferred its tasks to the Committee for National Defense and Security, the Office of the National Assembly, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The National Assembly renamed the Committee for National Defense and Security as the Committee for National Defense, Security and External Relations.

The National Assembly set up the Law and Judicial Committee by merging the Law Committee and the Judicial Committee; set up the Economic and Financial Committee by merging the Economic Committee and the Finance-Budget Committee; set up the Culture and Social Affair Committee by merging the Social Affair Committee and the Culture Committee.

For the executive branch, the Government has merged the following ministries: The Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Finance have been merged into the Ministry of Finance; the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Construction into the Ministry of Construction; the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment; the Ministry of Information and Communications and the Ministry of Science and Technology into the Ministry of  Science and Technology; and the Ministry of Labor-Invalids and Social Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs into the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The Government set up the Ministry of Ethnic Minorities and Religions on the basis of the Committee for Ethnic Minority Affairs receiving functions, tasks and structural organization from the Government Committee for Religious Affairs under the Ministry of Home Affairs.