Vietnam’s National Assembly yesterday approved an ambitious administrative reform plan that will nearly halve the number of provinces and cities and slash nearly 80,000 government jobs. The rubber-stamp legislature voted overwhelmingly to reduce the country’s 63 provincial and city administrations to just 34, including 28 provinces and six centrally-run cities.
Under the reform, 11 cities and provinces – Hanoi, Hue, Lai Chau, Dien Bien, Son La, Lang Son, Quang Ninh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh, and Cao Bang – will remain unchanged, while all others will be the product of mergers. (A map showing the boundaries of the new provinces is available here.)
According to a report by VnExpress, the resolution “requests competent authorities to urgently carry out necessary preparations to ensure that local administrations formed after the rearrangement officially begin operations from July 1, 2025.”
The provincial mergers are part of a radical slimming of the administrative apparatus that was approved by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) in April. The changes will also see the elimination of the entire district level of administration, and the reorganization of administrative units at the commune level. (This will require changes to the constitution that the National Assembly is expected to vote on in the coming days.) It also involves parallel cuts to CPV Party Committees and other Party-affiliated institutions, and a reduction in the number of ministries and topline government agencies from 30 to 22, which was approved by the National Assembly in February.
Interior Minister Pham Thi Thanh Tra told the National Assembly on Wednesday that the reform amounted to the “biggest ever revolution since the country was founded,” according to a state media report cited by the AFP news agency. Tra added that “79,339 officials will have to be streamlined, quitting their jobs or submitting for early retirement following the merge.”
This bureaucratic “revolution” – significantly, this word has been used prominently in state references to the reforms – is the brainchild of CPV General Secretary To Lam, who has called for an administrative restructuring that will make the party-state “lean, compact, strong, efficient, effective, and impactful.”
Coming on the heels of the “blazing furnace” anti-corruption campaign, which led to hundreds of arrests, firings, and demotions, the campaign is intended to cut costs, reduce bureaucratic bloat, and ensure that Vietnam continues its upward economic advance – to “shift from passive management to active service to the people,” as Lam has put it.
According to VnExpress, the restructuring is projected to reduce the workforce by approximately 250,000 people, “including 130,000 officials, civil servants, and public employees,” in addition to 120,000 part-time workers at the commune level. The reform is expected to save more than VND190 trillion ($7.3 billion) in the 2026–2030 period.
Some observers say that the reforms are also set to strengthen political centralization, particularly over areas like the Central Highlands, which have a history of resisting central control, and tighten Lam’s control over the Party ahead of the next CPV National Congress, which is due in early 2026. As Bill Hayton of Chatham House wrote on X yesterday, the reduction in provinces will lead to a drop in the number of representatives who are sent to the Congress, enabling Lam “to gerrymander the outcome… much more easily.”