Fresh leadership, steady direction
Fresh leadership, steady direction
Vietnam’s newly-elected Party leadership is expected to take the country further down the road towards its ambitions of a reformed, efficient state to accompany the public and the business community.
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The week-long 13th National Party Congress, which wrapped up on February 1, established the country’s new Party Central Committee (PCC) for the 2021-2026 tenure. The new committee includes 180 official members and 20 alternate members, who are leaders within the Party, the National Assembly’s (NA) bodies, the government’s ministries, and relevant agencies.
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Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong was re-elected for his post, in what will be an unprecedented third 5-year term as the country’s top leader.
The election recognised that Trong, also the incumbent State President, has managed state affairs in a stable manner, including the containment of the COVID-19 pandemic, boosting economic development, and management of an anti-corruption campaign against senior officials and executives of state-owned enterprises.
The 76-year-old leader will be the Party’s first general secretary to gain a third term since Vietnam was reunified in 1975.
“The new PCC promises to congress, the Party, the entire people, and the armed forces that will all make the greatest efforts to accomplish all tasks and inherit the tradition and revolutionary achievements that the country has reaped,” he stated. “Together with the Party and all people, we will also continue promoting the glorious traditions and experiences of the Party and the nation, strengthening solidarity and consensus in ideology and action.”
The 13th National Party Congress laid out development courses for the country not only in the short-term, but also with an ambitious vision to become a high-income developed socialist-oriented nation by 2045, when the country marks the 100th year of its independence.
The new PCC is expected to help to address national challenges and drive the country forward in service of the public and the business community. More sturdy economic reforms are also expected over the next years to hit higher and improve economic growth, along with more employment to be generated.
The Political Report adopted at the congress stated that based on positive achievements reaped over the past years, all efforts must be made for the domestic economy to reach an average annual growth rate of 6.5-7 per cent during 2021-2025. For the whole 2021-2030 period, the rate should be 7 per cent a year.
In 2020, despite heavy damage caused by the health crisis and thanks to the clear-sighted leadership and orientations of the Party, sound policies have been made by the government which identified the motto of “fighting the pandemic like fighting an enemy” and determined that the dual goals of pandemic prevention and socioeconomic recovery be reached.
As a result, Vietnam surprised the world with its impressive control of COVID-19 and its inspiring economic growth rate of 2.91 per cent in 2020, and an average annual 6.8 per cent rate in the 2016-2019 period, making the country one of the world’s top 10 nations with the highest growth, and also one of the 16 most successful emerging economies worldwide last year.
In 2020, the economy’s GDP was estimated to be about VND6.3 quadrillion ($273.9 billion), up 1.4-fold since the beginning of the 2016-2020 period, and ranking fourth in Southeast Asia, with total export-import turnover of $544 billion, up 5.2 per cent on-year – fetching a record trade surplus of $19.1 billion, notably in the context of a strong decline in global trade.
Vietnam currently has nearly 800,000 operational businesses, about 98 per cent of which are of small and medium sizes. According to the General Statistics Office, in 2020, there were about 135,000 newly-established enterprises, with the total registered capital of over VND2.23 quadrillion ($96.9 billion) and employing more than one million labourers. This was down 2.3 per cent in the number of registered enterprises but up 29.25 per cent in registered capital. Besides that, operating businesses increased their capital by an additional $145.3 billion. Also, over 44,000 others resumed operation, up 11.9 per cent on-year.
Vietnam has been successfully expanding and reinforcing its network of close partners and allies in its immediate neighbourhood and across the globe through active participation in international trade and political events.
