Towards the successful 13th Party Congress, leading the country to a new phase of development

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Over almost a century (90 years since the birth of our Party), for our country, each National Congress has been considered an important event of historic significance marking a new development of the nation. This upcoming 13th National Congress of our Party will take place in the context of very rapid, complicated and unpredictable developments in the region and the world; the country is enjoying many advantages and opportunities, meanwhile feeing various hardships and challenges with numerous newly emerging issues; public cadre, Party members and the people have great expectations on the judicious, strong, clear-sighted decisions and policies of the Party. With the motto “Unity – Democracy – Discipline – Creativeness – Development”, the Congress will review not only the implementation of the Resolution of the 12th National Congress but also the 35-year implementation of the Doi Moi, 30-year implementation of the 1991 Political Platform, 10-year implementation of the amended Political Platform (amended in 2011), the National Socio-economic Development Strategy 2011-2020; setting out directions, tasks for the term 2021-2026, determining the goals, orientations towards 2030 (the centenary anniversary of the founding of the Party) with a vision for national development to 2045 (the centenary anniversary of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam). Thus, this is definitely another important milestone in the development of our Party, people and nation, with the significance of defining the future, continuously pushing forward the renewal, global integration, and development of the country in a comprehensive and concerted manner.

The draft documents to be submitted to this Congress have been in a process of meticulous, professional and thoughtful preparation. In this process, the principles of skillful combination between theories and practice, persistence and renovations, inheritance and development have been profoundly grasped, on the basis of promoting democracy to its fullest, ideas contributed by scientists, public cadre, Party members and people attended to; dedicated and responsible proposals selected, screened, and consulted; the wisdom and innovative capacity of the entire Party, people and armed forces crystallised. The political report is the central document of the Congress, together with the The Report on the implementation of the 10-year Socio-economic Development Strategy 2011-2020, building the 10-year Socio-economic Development Strategy 2021-2030; The Evaluation Report on the implementation of the tasks on 5-year Socio-economic Development 2016-2020 and the orientations, tasks of the 5-year Socio-economic Development 2021-2025; the Report on summing up the implementation of Party building and Party Statutes enforcement. The documents to be submitted to the Congress has reflected the major views, guidelines, orientations, demonstrated the strategic visions and thinking of the Party, the aspirations for development of the nation, and the political determination of the entire Party, people and armed forces in the cause of building and firmly defending our beloved socialist Viet Nam that is prosperous, strong, democratic, equitable and advanced. The recent grassroot-level and upper-grassroot level Party congresses have discussed in a meticulous manner all the Party Congress draft documents. I have learned that the ideas contributed are abundant, diverse, multi-dimensional and viewed from various angles and approaches. The Sub-committees for Documents have compiled and adopted those ideas in order to supplement and complete the discussion. I am not presenting each content of the reports but to touch upon overall issues which are generalised and synthesised, and to suggest some major, important issues to continue to be opined by the Congress.

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I- Looking back at the tenure of the 12th Congress, we are happy to see that the entire Party, people and armed forces have brought into full play the spirit of solidarity, demonstrated their mettle, wisdom, and efforts for innovations, overcome numerous difficulties and challenges, successfully accomplished central goals and tasks, obtained many crucial achievements; the nation continues to develop in a rapid and relatively comprehensive way, with positive changes and many outstanding marks:

- Against the backdrop of the regression of the global economy and trade, followed by a serious crisis due to the Covid-19 pandemic’s impacts, our economy still retains its rather high growth rate on average (about 6% annually), being one of the most rapidly growing economies in the region and the world. The quality of growth has been improved; the stability of macroeconomics rather firmly maintained; major balances of the economy basically ensured; disciplines and rules on finance and state budget spending strengthened. Social investment and the capacity of business and production have been strongly enhanced. The inner strength, size and competitiveness of our economy continue to be increased one step higher. The society has been basically stable, people's lives increasingly improved (the rate of poor household reduced from 58% in 1993 to 9.88% in 2016 and below 3% in 2020); Social welfare, health, education-training, science­-technology, environment and resources protection, cultural development, the building of the qualities of the Vietnamese people, and so on, have seen positive changes, with some rather outstanding improvements.

- The building and rectification of the Party and the political system have been paid special attention to, and carried out comprehensively in all aspects of politics, thinking, ethics, organisation and personnel, with outstanding marks. The fight against, and prevention of, corruption, negative phenomena, wastefulness have witnessed drastic changes, and conducted in a determined, methodical, and in-depth way, with breakthroughs and concrete, obvious and positive results. Corruption, negative phenomena, degradation, “self-evolution” and “self-transformation” within the Party and the political system have been gradually curbed. Many economic, and corruption cases, especially big and serious ones have been uncovered, investigated, and tried scrupulously one after another, without any restriction or exception, creating great deterrence and awakening to those with wrongdoings, enjoying high appreciation, sympathy, and support from public officials, Party members, and the people.

- Against the backdrop of complicated international and regional developments and sabotage activities intensified by hostile forces, our national defense and security have continued to be strengthened. Political security and social order and safety have been maintained. Foreign activities and international integration have been intensified, constantly expanded and deepened, contributing to the consolidation of an environment of peace and stability for development; the independence, sovereignty, sovereign rights, unity, territorial integrity, strategic interests of our country resolutely and persistently have been maintained; Vietnam's prestige and status in the international arena have been continuously elevated.

- Especially, in 2020, thanks to the sharp and judicious leadership of the Party and State; the forceful and timely guidance and governance of the Government; the concerted and proactive participation of the whole political system; the strong consensus, response, and support of the people across the country and Vietnamese overseas, we have contained, basically controlled and prevented the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in the community, minimised the damages and loss caused by the pandemic, ensured social security and welfare for the people, gradually recover production and business, exert great efforts to complete at the highest level socio-economic development tasks for 2020 and the 2020 and the 2016 - 2020 period. Vietnam has become a bright spot in successfully containing and preventing the Covid-19 pandemic, which has been recognised and highly valued by the international community, contributing to raising the people’s trust in the Party, State and the socialist regime.

The achievements over the last 5 years are thanks to objective and subjective reasons, the most important of which is the judicious leadership and guidance of the Party Central Committee, the Politburo, the Secretariat, and Party committee at various levels in implementing the 12th Congress Resolution, in timely and fruitfully tackling newly emerging problems in practice; the energetic and forceful management and governance of the Government and various-level authorities; the efforts to innovate the substance and modes of operation of the National Assembly's work; the solidarity, unity and concerted coordination in the whole political system; the bringing into play of the tradition of patriotism, and the strength constituted by the great all-nation unity; the endeavours made by the pool of the public cadre and Party members; the working spirit of proactiveness, creativeness and responsibility of the people; the credit, agreement and support of the international community.

These achievements are the product of the crystallisation of creativity, the result of a process of persistent and continuous efforts through many tenures of the entire Party, people and armed forces. They also contribute to the great achievements of historic significance of our country. I have repeatedly said, with all our modesty, we can still assert that: Never has our country had the fortune, potential, and international position and prestige as it does today. Once a small, poor and backward country of very low development level which was almost absent in the world map, Vietnam has risen up as a developing, middle-income country with nearly 100 million people, having relations with almost all the countries in the world, being member of most of international organisations, and a trust-worthy and responsible member and partner in, the international community. With that, we are more confident, excited and proud to continue to affirm that our path has been right and in accordance with the objective laws, Vietnam's realities and development trend of the time; that our Party's policies have been judicious and creative; that the Party's leadership has been clear¬-sighted and served as the top factor of determining each and every victory of the Vietnam's revolution; the Party's political platform has remained the ideological and theoretical flag, leading our nation to firmly strengthen our renewal cause; and has been the Party's foundation to continue to perfect our policy on Homeland building and safeguarding in the new period.

The 5 years of implementing the 12th Party Congress Resolution constitute a fresh, lively and rich reality for us to continue to confirm, enrich and deepen the lessons and experiences drawn from the previous tenures:

First, Party building and rectification (the building of organisation and personnel) must be implemented in a comprehensive, concerted, and regular manner in term of ideology, political work, ethics, and organisation and personnel. Remaining steadfast and firm in the Party's ideological foundation must be in parallel with building the Party apparatus and the whole political system which are truly streamlined, and effective, and efficient. President Ho Chi Minh's teaching that “cadres is the root of all work”, “Every success or failure is attributed to good or bad cadre” must be thoroughly grasped. Therefore, organisation and personnel work must be a breakthrough, the “key” of “key task” as it relates to the survival of the Party and the fate of the regime; and the rapid and sustainable development of the country. Great attention must be paid to the work of building and cleaning the pool of cadre, especially strategic-level cadres whose quality, capacity, and credibility are sufficiently up to their tasks; exemplary role of the public cadre and Party members must be promoted; the higher the positions they hold, the more exemplary they must be.

Second, in leading, instructing and organising the implementation work, there should be high resolve, great efforts, real dynamism, creativeness, and importance attached to making breakthroughs in development; importance should also be attached to quality and effectiveness of this work while upholding the responsibility of the heads of entities. The weakness, tardiness in leading, instructing, and organising the implementation of orientations and policies must be successfully overcome. Discipline and orders must be strictly maintained in organising the execution of laws, policies and public duties; and at the same time, it is a must to protect the Party's cadres, members who have high combativeness, exemplify in implementing the Party's principles and disciplines and the State laws, dare to reform and innovate, to think, speak out, take action, bear accountability, face difficulties, and challenges, and act drastically.

Third, in undertaking tasks, great attention must be paid to harmoniousness and comprehensiveness in order to not only fulfill urgent and immediate targets, resolve once and for all the weaknesses, bottlenecks, and shortcomings; but also build harmonious development institutions to achieve the country's long-term, fundamental and sustainable goals along the line of ensuring the harmony between economic renewal and political, cultural and social renewal; between economic growth and cultural and human development, the exercise of social progress and equity; effectively resolve social issues, protect natural resources and the environment; between socio-economic development and national defense and security guarantee; between independence, autonomy and the strengthening of external relations and international integration; truly attach importance to, and bringing into full play the role of education and training, science and technology in the new situation.

Fourth, in securing national defense and security, and external relations, it is necessary to proactively research, grasp, and correctly forecast the situation, proactively devise contingency plans to avoid being passive and caught by surprise; properly and effectively handle relations with major powers, strategic partners, traditional friends and neighbouring countries; pay attention to heightening the country's prestige and image, while staying alert to the increasingly sophisticated and malign plots and tricks of hostile and reactionary forces and political opportunists who aggressively sabotage our Party, State and People, especially in the field of politics and ideology.

Fifth, in every Party and State work, it is necessary to always remember that ^“the people constitute the roots”, truly trust, respect, and promote the ownership role of the people; persistently follow the principle of “people know, discuss, do, inspect, supervise, and benefit”. People are the centre and the subject of the renewalcourse; all guidelines and policies must truly come from the aspirations, legitimate rights and interests of the people. It is imperative for the Party to take full and thorough care of people's lives and interests; build flesh-and-blood relationships with the people; rely on the people for Party building, take work performance, and people's satisfaction and credit as an important criterion to evaluate the quality of the organisational apparatus, public cadre, and Party members. In order to consolidate people's trust in the Party, it is a must to resolutely and proactively clean the Party's pool of cadres, address the phenomenon of deterioration and degeneration of quality and lifestyle among a number of public cadre and Party members, consolidate and build truly clean and strong party organisations, making the Party the true leader, and genuinely faithful servant of the people.

Those valuable lessons constitute an important foundation for our Party to continuously apply them in leading and directing work, helping us to gain greater mettle and confidence in facing many new and greater hardships and challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic and the global economic downturn when starting the XIII tenure.

II- About directions and tasks of the XIII Congress term and the coming period: It is forecast that in the coming years, the international and regional context continues to witness many complicated, rapid, and unpredictable changes. Under the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, the world has fallen into a serious multi-faceted crisis, in healthcare, economy, society and governance. Strategic competition, economic competition, and trade wars continue to unfold fiercely. The Fourth Industrial Revolution has strongly developed, creating breakthroughs in many fields, and opportunities for, and challenges to, all countries. Countries are exerting efforts to adjust their strategies and modes of development in adapting to the new situation. The Asia-Pacific region has an increasingly important strategic position. In Southeast Asia, the security environment and sovereignty disputes in the East Sea continue to be complicated. Climate change, natural disasters, epidemics and other non-traditional security issues increasingly create strong and multi-faceted impacts, seriously threaten the stable and sustainable development of the world, the region and our country.

Meanwhile, despite very proud achievements, our country is still facing many difficulties and challenges. Economic growth is not commensurate to the potential, after registering high growth rates consecutively in the first 4 years of the tenure, the year 2020 is witnessing a sharp decline, likely only at 3%, the quality of growth remains low while facing many negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Autonomy and resilience of the economy is not high. The State economic sector, especially state-owned enterprises are still operating inefficiently, facing numerous difficulties and bottlenecks. The domestic private sector and the foreign-invested sector are enjoying rapid but not truely sustainable development. There remain many shortcomings in the leadership and state management of socio-economic fields, ensuring political security, social order and safety, and the protection of the environment and resources, causing animosity in the public. The fight to protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity remains complicated. The historical values, cultural traditions of the Vietnamese nation and people have not been fully promoted. The capacity in institutional building remains limited; the quality of laws and policies remains low. The leading capacity and modes, combativeness of many Party organisations and Party members are not commensurate to their assigned tasks. The mechanism for power control in the Party and State is not yet adequate and synchronous; the efficiency and effectiveness of this work are not yet high. Those difficulties, shortcomings, and mistakes require to be successfully overcome by our entire Party, people and political system through higher determination, greater efforts, and more drastic actions. In continuously promoting the renewal cause, it is imperative for our Party to remain truly steadfast in, and hold firmly, its revolutionary and scientific nature, while keeping close bonds with the people, and being trusted and loved by the people so as to overcome all difficulties and challenges, and lead the nation in successfully realising the goal of building and defending our Socialist Vietnam.

A thoroughly guiding thought of the entire Party, people and armed forces is to remain steadfast and creatively apply and develop Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh's thoughts; persistent with the goal of national independence and socialism, and the Party's renewal guideline to build and protect the socialist Vietnam. This is a matter of vital significance to our regime, a solid foundation of our Party which allows no deviation and wavering. It is necessary to master and well handle the relationship between persistency on one side and innovation and creative application on the other. “Being persistent” in a mechanical way will easily lead to dogmatism, rigidity and conservatism; on the contrary, “being innovative” without persistency and principles may also fall into revisionism, deviation, and “change of colour”. Therefore, it is imperative to clearly understand, correctly apply the dialectic method of Marxism-Leninism: persistency must be closely associated with creativity, and creativity must be on the basis of persistency in accordance with reality, and the requirements of renewal, international integration and national development.

The overall development strategy of our country in the coming period is to develop the country rapidly and sustainably, ensure close interlink and synchronous implementation of various tasks, of which socio-economic development is central; Party building the key; cultural development the foundation of the society; and national defense and security a vital and constant task.

The driving force and resources for national development in the new period are the strongly promoted patriotism, national willpower of self-reliance, aggregated strength of the whole political system, and Vietnamese culture and people; and combination of national strength with the strength of the time. It is a precious national tradition which has been used creatively by our Party throughout the 90 years of leading the people in the fight for national independence and reunification, and building socialism. This is extremely important when the country is at a historic juncture, at which great material and spiritual resources are required for breakthroughs and development. Our successful containment and control of the recent Covid-19 pandemic is a solid example demonstrating the superiority of our regime, the tradition of solidarity, patriotism, compassion and the iron will of our nation and people; however, complacency, subjectivity, and negligence shall never be allowed; the more difficulties and challenges we face, the more strongly these qualities and traditions must be promoted and multiplied.

What determine the success of the cause of building, developing, defending the Fatherland are the intensification of Party building and rectification; enhancement of the Party's leadership, ruling capacity and combativeness; the building of a clean, strong, streamlined State and the political system with operational effectiveness and efficiency; the building of a pool of public cadre and Party members, particularly those of strategic caliber, who are equipped with sufficient qualities, capabilities, and credits which are commensurate to their assigned tasks, at the same time keeping the organic ties with the people. With a genuinely revolutionary, clean, strong party with sufficient mettle, wisdom, experience, and leading credibility like ours, and with the whole-hearted trust and support of the people, we will have a great strength to overcome all difficulties and challenges, be unimpeded by any force preventing our nation from moving forward, and make new miracles in the cause of building and developing a more prosperous and beautiful country as ever wished by Uncle Ho.

Bringing into full play the willpower and strength of the great all-nation unity, at the upcoming Congress we need to embrace a farther vision to mid-21^st century for our country, in which our country to become a socialist-oriented developed country, concrete goals and tasks for each stage to be determined; the characteristics of inheritance and development, continuity and completion in the progress of building socialism in our country to be clearly demonstrated; reflecting a combination of dedication, wisdom, trust, “the Party's ideas and people's aspiration” and the desires, aspirations and willpower to reach a bright future for the country and the entire nation.

The political report submitted to the upcoming Congress sets out the overall objectives, which are: to enhance the Party's leadership, ruling capacity and combativeness; build a clean and strong Party and political system in all aspects; to consolidate people's trust in the Party, State and the socialist system; to promote innovations, the willpower and aspirations for developments and the great all-nation unity strength, combined with the strength of the time; to push forward in a comprehensive and concerted manner the Doi Moi undertaking, national industrialisation and modernisation, rapid and sustainable development of the nation; to firmly defend the Homeland, maintain peace and stability; to strive for our country to become a socialist-oriented developed nation by mid-21^st century.

Based on the principles of ensuring scientificness, feasibility and practicality; continuity and making appropriate supplementation in each stage of national development; with due reference to international experience and globally-recognised development standards, we determine concrete goals towards important milestones of our nation:

-By 2025: to become a developing nation with modernity-oriented industry and surpass the low-middle-income level.

-By 2030, which marks the 100^th anniversary of the founding of the Party: to become a developing nation with modern industry and upper-middle-income level.

-By 2045, which marks the 100^th anniversary of the birth of our nation: to become a developed nation with high-income level.

The overall and specific objectives set out by the Congress serve as crucial basis to determine the orientations of, tasks and solutions for, national building, development and defense; these objectives must be synchronous and feasible, meet long-term requirements while prioritising central tasks and strategic breakthroughs in their implementation; consensus must be created in both awareness and actions of the entire Party, people and armed forces in the period from now to mid-21^st century, specifically:

First, to continue to vigorously reform the way of thinking, to synchronously build and complete institutions for sustainable development in terms of economics, politics, culture, society, environment protection, and so on; to tap upon all potentials and resources, to create new driving force for rapid and sustainable national development. Foremost, to concentrate on comprehensively and synchronously completing the socialist-oriented market economy institution based on a unified perception that this is our nation's overall economic model during the period of transition to socialism. To focus on building and completing mechanisms and policies to effectively and harmoniously tackle the relationships among the State, market and society. Particularly, to make substantive institutional breakthroughs to resolve issues emerging in reality, which are practical and concrete, such as: mobilising, managing, efficiently usage of the resources for development, redressing corruption, wastefulness and negative practices in the management and use of land, natural resources and public assets; accumulating and concentrating lands for the development of high-tech agriculture; ensuring concerted development and creating links among economic entities and forms of business and manufacturing organisations; reforming and improving the efficiency of the public sector and state-owned enterprises; encouraging and creating favorable conditions for the private sector to develop and become an important driving force of the economy; untangling the inconsistency, contradictions and overlapping in the building and enforcement of laws, strategies, scheming, and planning that are obstructing the development and operation of a full, modern and internationally-integrated market economy.

Second, to vigorously reform the growth model, restructure the economy, accelerate industrialisation and modernisation, give rise to the quality of 13 economic growth, labour productivity and economic competitiveness based on the perception that this is a basic, essential and decisive task for fulfilling the goal of rapid and sustainable national development. To create a fundamental shift of the economy toward a growth model based on the efficient use of resources, scientific and technological advances and innovations, as well as the promotion of the potentials and advantages of all industries and sectors, localities and the entire country. To strive for breakthroughs in building a modern and synchronised infrastructure, creating the groundwork for the development of novel industries and domains, especially digital economy, digital society and digital government. To build a strong and solid national industry; develop large- scale commodity production and apply high-tech in agriculture sector; develop the service sector based on digital economy and the application of latest scientific and technological advances. To consistently follow the guideline of making science and technology a national priority and the most important driving force to develop a modem productive force, renovate the growth model, increase productivity, quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy. To make breakthroughs in developing human resources, especially high-quality ones, through fundamental, comprehensive and synchronous reforms in education and training; with importance attached to the concerted building of mechanisms and policies, synchronous reforms of objectives, contents, curricula, modes and methodologies of education and training toward modernisation and international integration, the building of a healthy educational environment, the resolute resolving of the pursuing statistical achievements at all cost, and the strict punishment of negative phenomena in education and training.

Third, to manage properly and sufficiently the sustainable development of the society, tackle harmoniously relations of interests in the society. To address efficiently the relations between the exercise of democracy on one hand and the guarantee of legal enforcement and social discipline on the other. To ensure social progress and fairness; attach importance to the sustainability of population and development policies and social policies, especially social welfare and security, human security, towards sustainable jobs and the development of a comprehensive social welfare system, towards covering the whole population through reforming the social insurance system into a multi-tier and sustainable one based on the principle of calculating retirement allowance on premium payment. To build and bring into full play the Vietnamese cultural values and human strength; complete and realise a system of national values, cultural values and human standards in association with promoting the willpower, the desire for development, and the strength of the Vietnamese people in the new era; strive for breakthroughs and strong measures to effectively prevent the deterioration in ethics and lifestyles and to repel negative phenomena and evils in society.

Fourth, to carry out foreign activities in a concerted, creative and efficient manner; build a modem diplomacy for the interest of the nation-state, with the people and enterprises at the center of its service; pro-actively and actively conduct intensive and extensive international integration. Resolutely and persistently safeguard the independence, sovereignty, sovereign rights, unity, and territorial integrity of the Homeland; protect the Party, State, people and the socialist regime. To build revolutionary, elite, and gradually modem armed forces. To proactively prevent risks of war and conflict early and from afar; detect and resolve timely unfavourable factors, especially those may yield sudden changes; and every plot and activities of hostile forces.

Fifth, to bolster the building and rectification of the Party, State, and entire political system for them to be clean, strong, streamlined, with operational effectiveness and efficiency. To enhance the protection of the Party’s ideological foundation, resolutely and regularly fight, criticise, and refute wrongful and hostile views; fight against, prevent, and roll back deterioration in political ideology, ethics, and lifestyles, and the manifestations of internal “self-evolution” and “self-transformation”. Resolutely and persistently combat and prevent corruption, wastefulness, negative phenomena with higher determination, stronger and more drastic and efficient actions without any restricted area or exception. To continue to build pool of cadre at all levels, especially strategic ones who are sufficiently capable, qualified, and credible, and commensurate to their mandates. To uphold the spirit of self-forging, ethics improving, and exemplar setting of public officials and Party members; the higher the position they hold, the more exemplary they must be. To combine the guarantee of discipline, order, and the rule of law as well as strict Party building with educating and nurturing fine qualities and revolutionary ethics to effectively prevent and combat against the diseases of individualism. To effectively enforce regulations on power control in personnel work, fight against the lobbying for positions and power. To exercise Party’s, administrative, and legal disciplines on officials with in a strict and concerted manner. To strongly renew the work of inspection, oversight, and the exercise of Party discipline and enhance their effectiveness and efficiency in the direction of close and concerted coordination between agencies of control, inspection, audit, investigation, prosecution, trial, state management, as well as the Fatherland Front, and socio-political organisations.

The 35 years of renewal, 30 years of implementing the Platform (amended and developed in 2011), the Strategy for socio-economic development for the 2011-2020 period, and the 5 years of implementing the 12th Congress Resolution have affirmed the need for more profound understanding of, continuous amendment and development of the following relations, and increase the quality and efficiency in tackling them: the major relations on ideological and theoretical work, as well as decisions and policies to remove hurdles and bottlenecks for rapid and sustainable national development, with special attention to better management of the relations between: renewal, stability, and development; economic renewal and political renewal; complying with market laws and ensuring the socialist orientation; development of productive force and building and gradual completion of the socialist production relations; the State on one hand and the market and society on the other; economic growth on the one hand and cultural development, guarantee of social progress and equity, and environmental protection on the other; building socialism and defending the socialist Homeland; independence, autonomy and international integration; Party’s leadership, State's governance and the people's ownership; democracy exercise and law enforcement and social order guarantee. These are the major relations reflecting dialectical laws, the core theoretical issues related to the renewal policy in our country which are required to be fully understood, truly imbued with, profoundly grasped for, and thoroughly and effectively managed, by the entire Party, people, and armed forces.

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The 13th Congress of our Party is approaching. The remaining workload is daunting while time is running out, the Party committees at all level and members of the Central Committee must uphold higher their sense of responsibility to the Party and people, strive to successfully fulfill the goals set by the resolution of the 12th National Congress and those set by Party congresses at lower level for the 2015-2020 tenure. At this important juncture, we shall deeply engrave on our minds the teachings of our beloved Uncle Ho, “Party Congress bears great relation to the future of the revolution of our Party and people. The Congress shall further unify our united Party, consolidate consensus in thoughts and actions that have been agreed upon”. The entire Party, people and armed forces shall unify in hearts and minds, join forces to carry out thoroughly the preparatory work for, and successfully conduct, the 13^th National Congress of the Party, leading the country to a new phase of development with the goal of “prosperous people, powerful, democratic, just and civilised country”, successfully fulfilling the heartfelt wish of great President Ho Chi Minh and the desire of the entire nation.

Nguyen Phu Trong

Source: NDO