During his reception last Friday for Laos’ Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Somdy Douangdy, Da Nang People’s Committee Chairman Huynh Duc Tho remarked that his city would strengthen the cooperation with some southern provinces of Laos in the years ahead.

Deputy Prime Minister Douangdy (left) and Chairman Tho

In reply, Deputy Prime Minister Douangdy affirmed that Da Nang has made great efforts to bolster the relationships between the Party, State and the people of the two countries over recent years.  He also congratulated the city on its remarkable achievements during its progress.

He affirmed that his visit to Da Nang aims to learn from the city’s valuable experiences of budgetary management and coordination between budget collection, and spending management agencies.

Also on the same day, Deputy Prime Minister Douangdy met with People’s Committee Vice Chairman Tran Van Mien in order to learn about the city’s budgetary management.

Vice Chairman Mien said that, between January and June, the total of taxes collected in the city reached over 9,700 billion VND, fulfilling 65.1% of the year’s target.  This positive sign was mainly attributable to the city’s effective tax policies and strong measures to reduce tax collection losses in the local hospitality sector.   Furthermore, importance was attached to ensuring the efficient use of the budget, and the promotion of administrative reforms in combination with customs modernisation.

The host and his guest also shared experiences in reducing tax collection losses, with a focus on dealing with tax employees who collude with businesses to illegally appropriate taxes. 

There were also discussions about effectively ensuring the collection of customs fees, imposing value-added tax (VAT), and issuing local government bonds.

The Laotian guest hoped that Laos and Da Nang would jointly organise a workshop on budgetary management in Laos in the near future in order to help Laotian localities learn more valuable experiences from the city in this respect.