The eighth conference of the Communist Party of Vietnam’s Central Committee wrapped up in Hanoi on October 9.

During the ten-day gathering, the committee discussed a number of important issues, including the socio-economic development for 2014, the basic and comprehensive renewal in education and training, the draft amendments to the 1992 Constitution, and the establishment of five sub-committees to prepare for the Party’s 12th Congress.

Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong

The conference reached unanimity on the status of the country’s recent socio-economic development and mapped out orientations, goals, tasks and solutions for the next year and the 2014-15 period.

Inflation has been kept under control and the macro-economy basically stabilised with the consumer price index (CPI) brought down to 7 percent in 2013 from 18.13 percent in 2011, the committee noted.

The country has seen safer and more stable performance in financial-credit organisations’ operation with falling interest rates, rising foreign reserves, stable exchange rates, surging exports, and improving trade balance, while public, government and foreign debts are kept at a safe level.

The economy is on track to recovery, obtaining an annual growth of 5.6 percent during the 2011-13 period which is estimated to be at 5.4 percent for this year.

Despite difficulties, the Party and State have been paying attention to socio-cultural development, social welfare, defence, and security. The number of poor households continues to decline.

The committee pointed out the tasks that require more efforts to implement in the last two years of the tenure (2014-2015), focusing on macro-economic stability, inflation control, and growth rate recovery; social welfare and security, the people’s living conditions; natural resources and environment protection and active response to climate change; acceleration of administrative reforms and corruption fight as well as business environment improvement; and expansion and improvement of the efficiency of external activities and international integration.

For 2014, priority should be given to the goal of maintaining the macro-economic stability, curbing inflation while removing obstacles for production and business, thus creating motivation and trust for people and enterprises, the committee said.

The conference debated and agreed to issue Resolution on basic and comprehensive renewal in education and training to meet the need of industrialisation and modernisation.

The committee also discussed issues which still see differences and gave ideas to each chapter, provision and the entire draft amendments to the 1992 Constitution.

It laid special stress on the constant maintenance of the absolute, direct and comprehensive leadership by the Party over the national defence, the building of a pure and strong Party and State, and the unceasing consolidation of the great national unity.

Vigilance must be heightened to thwart all plots and actions of sabotage and aggression by hostile forces, and to avoid falling into passive position under any circumstance, while the strategic tasks of national construction and defence must be connected and socio-economic development and the enhancement of defence, security and diplomacy must be associated.

In addition, the strength of the nation and that of the era must be combined, the committee emphasised.

During the conference, the committee decided to establish five sub-committees to prepare for the Party’s 12th Congress, including those on document, socio-economic affairs, Party Statutes, personnel, and organising work.

Besides, it also discussed and gave comments to the draft election regulations in the Party.

At the closing session, General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong emphasised the importance of decisions made at the conference, saying that they greatly impact the implementation of tasks on socio-economic development, education-training improvement, Party and State building work, national defence, and the protection of the country and the political system.

(Source: VNA)