Project Steering Committee Meeting “Strengthening capacity in developing state management tools for construction projects”

The meeting scene

A meeting of the Project Steering Committee for”Strengthening Capacity in developing state management tools for construction projects” took place at the headquarters of the Ministry of Construction, on September 29th, in atttendance of Deputy Minister Bui Hong Minh; Deputy Chief Representative of JICA Office in Vietnam Takanobu Shinoda and related parties.

At the meeting, the representative of the Department of Construction Economics (Ministry of Construction) reported on the progress of implementing the Project to strengthen capacity in developing state management tools for construction investment projects (SMTC Project) from organizational, design matrix; progress and plan for implementing outputs 1-5; pilot field survey plan; summary of the pilot field survey. Project participants also exchanged, discussed and proposed solutions for implementation in the future.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Minister Bui Hong Minh thanked the active participation of Japanese consultants in implementing the SMTC Project, and assessed that the Project has made an important contribution to perfect policies on construction investment and help units under the Ministry of Construction and related training programs in closely following the content of the role and functions of state management of the Ministry of Construction.

According to Deputy Minister Bui Hong Minh, currently, Vietnam has had many large investment projects in national infrastructure, from highway systems, branch roads, and industrial park infrastructure systems, bridges, seaports, and upcoming railways. This reality requires stricter and comprehensive construction investment management; a need for guidance in the process of implementing projects, helping to improve the capacity of investors, investment decision-makers and project participants.

Deputy Minister Bui Hong Minh requested that the Project results needed to provide clear and standard methods for relevant entities to easily comply and implement. In the coming time, the Deputy Minister desired that Japan would continue to pay attention and support the Ministry of Construction in promoting state management innovation in the field of construction investment.

On his side, Deputy Chief Representative of JICA Office in Vietnam Takanobu Shinoda said that during the implementation of the Project, Japanese experts would focus on research and provide recommendations and methods to suit with the practical conditions of Vietnam, contributing to improving the effectiveness of cooperation between JICA and the Ministry of Construction in particular, and between the Governments of Japan and Vietnam in general.

According to the Department of Construction Economics, the SMTC Project has been implementing since November 2019, using non-refundable aid from JICA. The project implementation scope is the entire territory of Vietnam. The pilot field survey will be carried out in Hanoi, Ha Nam, Hoa Binh and surrounding areas.

The project has an overall goal to improve the cost estimation system of construction investment projects using public capital in Vietnam. The purpose of the Project is to strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Construction in improving the cost estimation system of construction investment projects using public capital.

Project outputs include: strengthening the capacity of the Department of Construction Economics to determine direct cost norms for materials, labor and construction machines; indirect cost estimating, survey norms, design, and construction supervision; improve the system and process of estimating construction investment projects.