Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc urged inferior levels to double efforts to promptly fix pressing issues in a bid to gain greater achievements in 2020 while addressing Cabinet meeting on Friday. 

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc urges inferior levels to double efforts
to promptly fix pressing issues in a bid to gain greater achievements in 2020.
Photo: VGP

Specifically, the Government chief asked for concrete measures to avoid possible power shortage. Last September, the Government has set deadlines for a spate of power projects.

The Government tasked the Ministry of Industry and Trade to put the first and the second turbine generator of the Song Hau 1 coal-fired power plant into operation in the second and third quarter of 2021, respectively.

The 1,200MW plant is located in the Song Hau Power Complex in Phu Huu A industrial cluster of the Chau Thanh district in the southern province of Hau Giang.

Song Hau 1 is the first of the three power plants situated at the complex with total installed capacity of 5,200MW.

The Government also requested the ministry to ensure that the first and the second turbine generator of the Thai Binh 2 coal-fired power plant will come into operation by December 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, respectively.

The plant, invested by Petro Viet Nam, has designed capacity of 1,200MW and is expected to supply 7.2 billion kWh to the national grid once it comes into operation, playing an important role in ensuring the national energy security.

Viet Nam is forecast to need 131 billion kWh of coal-fired power, or 49.3% of the total power production as of 2020, according to the Revised Power Development Master Plan for 2011-2020 with vision to 2030.

PM Phuc also pointed out a range of remaining issues like slow disbursement of public investment capital, slow equitization of State-owned enterprises, environmental pollution, especially air pollution.

He called on inferior levels to continue improving legal corridor by clarifying and eliminating regulations that hinder national development process while designing mechanisms and policies to spur economic restructuring and growth transformation in an effective and practical manner./.