Ambitious VN congress aims high

Despite having the highest growth rate in Southeast Asia, Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party at its 12th congress, which will officially convene today, has set a higher ambition for economic expansion and industrialisation for the next five years.

The Communist Party called the congress this week until January 28 to set a new socio-economic plan as well as cast new set of leadership to run the country for the next five years. 

Ruling the country according to Marxist-Leninist principles since its independence in 1945, the Communist Party will maintain a so-called “socialist democracy” in its governance. The party managed to unify the country after the Vietnam War in 1975 and underwent radical reforms to have an open economy under the Doi Moi programme since 1986.

The congress, aiming to strengthen party-building in a clean, strong, leadership capacity as well as building a strong political system, said the new five-year plan will be implemented until 2020.

The party will promote comprehensive and synchronised renovation work; rapid economic development, sustainability, building the foundation for quickly bringing the country into a modern and industrialised one, it said.

The party will “firmly safeguard the independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity of the motherland, protect the party, the state, the people and the socialist regime”, the draft said. 

Changing of personnel will be seen at the end of the congress next week. Power struggle was going on between two camps led by the current party chief Nguyen Phu Trong and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung. 

The party aims to have economic growth rate average at 6.5 to 7 per cent per year for the next five years. By 2020, per capita GDP of about US$3,200-$3,500 the proportion of industry and services in GDP over 85 per cent; total social investment capital by five-year average of about 32-34 per cent of GDP, according to the plan. 

On the social front, the party set a target to have the proportion of agricultural workers in the total labour force of about 35 to 40 per cent and unemployment rate in urban areas less than 4 per cent by 2020, it said. 

On the environment, 95 per cent of the urban population, 90 per cent of the rural population have access to clean water and sanitation, while 80 to 85 per cent of hazardous waste and 95 to 100 per cent of medical waste is treated; and forest coverage rate has reached 44 to 45 per cent, it said.  Vietnam’s economy grew 6.68 per cent last year, highest over the past five years and better than the government’s forecast. 

As many as 1,510 delegates representing over 4.5 million Vietnamese Communist Party members attended the 12th national party congress.