Social security 62

Party delegates voted to adopt the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress at the final session of the Congress held on February 1, 2021.

The goals are part of the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress held from January 25 to February 1, the entirety of which has just been released by the Office of the Party Central Committee.

The Resolution noted the highlight of the 12th tenure was the successful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in significant economic achievements – including stable macroeconomics, controlled inflation and high GDP growth, while people’s living standards were improved. The fight against corruption, loss and waste was intensified, while the socio-political situation remained stable, foreign relations deepened and Vietnam’s profile on the international stage grew.

However, numerous shortcomings – including slow modernisation and industrialisation, shifting in the growth model, limited competitiveness and quality and productivity of the economy, inadequate adaptation to climate change and environment protection demands, drawbacks in Party building and rectification, that science and technology has not been the driving engine of socio-economic growth and the lives of certain groups of people remain difficult – of the 12th tenure have been identified in the Resolution.

The achievements of 35 years of implementation of doi moi (Reform), 30 years of implementing the 1991 Party Platform and in the 10 years of implementing the 2011 Revised Party Platform have proved that the country’s path towards socialism is consistent with Vietnam’s practical situation and the times’ development trends, with the Party’s righteous leadership the leading factor in Vietnam’s revolutionary victories, the Resolution reads.

Amid rapidly shifting and complex developments in the global scene, the Party Platform continues to serve as the ideological flag to gather the collective strength of united peoples for the goal of a “prosperous-people, strong-nation, democratic, equitable, and civilised” Vietnam.

Development vision and orientations

In the coming years, the challenges and opportunities of a complicated world demand the entire Party and Vietnamese people to “unite” and continue to have major changes in mindset and make correct and timely forecasts of the situation to prepare and deal with any circumstance, to “bring the country forward on the path of rapid, sustainable development” and the attainment of many orientations, goals, and tasks.

The Resolution lists major guiding orientations of the years forward, including “persistent and innovative” implementation of Marxist-Leninism and Hồ Chí Minh ideology, persistent pursuit of socialism and independence and upholding national interests based on the principles of the United Nations’ Charter and international law and the spirit of equal and win-win co-operation, with national defence and security in mind.

It also aims to enhance patriotism, the spirit of resilience, national unity and people’s aspirations to develop a prosperous and happy nation, promoting socialist democracy, enhancing the quality of human resources and promoting innovation and science and technology – especially the achievements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution – in service of the country’s sustainable and rapid development.

In addition, Party building and governance are goals, working towards a streamlined and effective Party system with quality cadres and civil servants.

The “general objectives” are identified as improving the Party’s leadership and ruling capacity; building a pure, strong and comprehensive Party and political system; consolidating and raising people’s confidence in the Party, the State and the socialist regime; fomenting aspirations to develop a prosperous and happy country; promoting the will and strength of national solidarity; promoting comprehensive and synchronous đổi mới (reforms), industrialisation, and modernisation; building and firmly defending the Fatherland, maintaining a peaceful and stable environment; and striving to become a developed country with socialist orientations by the middle of the 21st century.

The “particular objectives” are set on Vietnam becoming a developed nation with a modern industrial base and leaving the ranks of lower-middle-income countries by 2025 – the year marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the south and national reunification. By 2030, when the Party celebrates its 100th founding anniversary, Vietnam is hoped to become a developing country with a modern industrial base and upper-middle incomes. By 2045, the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Vietnam is hoped to become a developed, industrialised nation with high income.

In 2021-25, the Resolution sets a target for average GDP growth of 6.5-7 per cent, GDP per capita by 2025 reaching $4,700-5,000, the contributions of total factor productivity (TFP) in economic growth reaching 45 per cent, the labour productivity increase hitting 6.5 per cent a year, urbanisation reaching 45 per cent, the ratio of processing and manufacturing industries in the GDP exceeding 25 per cent, and the digital economy accounting for 20 per cent of the country’s GDP.

In this time frame, the Resolution aims for agricultural labour ratio staying at 25 per cent, the ratio of trained labour reaching 70 per cent, urban unemployment kept at below 4 per cent, the rate of multidimensional poverty maintaining a decrease of 1-1.5 per cent year-on-year, aiming for 10 doctors and 30 hospital beds for every 10,000 people, striving towards 95 per cent of the Vietnamese population being covered under the State’s health insurance, life expectancy reaching 74.5 years, and the ratio of communes obtaining new rural standards reaching at least 80 per cent, including 10 per cent meeting the requirements of exemplary new rural standards.

In terms of environment, by 2025, the goals are to have 95-100 per cent of the urban population and 93-95 per cent of rural population having access to clean and hygienic water, 90 per cent of urban waste properly collected and treated, 92 per cent of active industrial-processing zones outfitted with proper wastewater treatment facilities; 100 per cent of all businesses polluting the environment punished; and upholding the national forest coverage at 42 per cent.

The 13th tenure has “six central tasks”, with the first being Party building, building rules-based socialist State, with effective, corruption-free governance. The second task is controlling the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring COVID-19 vaccination coverage, while engaging in economic recovery, pursuing the transformation of growth model and economic restructuring, implementing national digital transformation strategy, raising labour productivity and innovation, and third is upholding independence, improving the effectiveness of foreign affairs and international integration, building modern and elite armed forces, and maintaining peaceful and stable environment for development.

The fourth central task is inspiring patriotism among the people to develop a prosperous and happy nation, promoting the role of cultural values and the strength of Vietnamese people in nation-building and defence, with detailed policies to develop the culture of ethnic minority groups, carrying out social policies and ensuring social security for the people, raising living standards and happiness indexes of the Vietnamese people. Fifth is perfecting the legal system, institutions, and policies to promote socialist democracy. The final central task is to strictly manage, reasonably and effectively use land and natural resources, protecting the environment, and implementing adaptation measures to cope with climate change and natural disasters.

Breakthrough strategies

To achieve the goals, the Party sets three major breakthrough strategies – completing development institutions, developing human resources, and building modern infrastructure.

Regarding institutions, the Party identifies the need to improve development institutions for a socialist-oriented market economy; reforming State governance towards modernity and competitiveness; improving the legal system and institutions to create a favourable, healthy, and fair business and investment environment for all sectors of the economy where innovation can foster; mobilising, managing and using all resources – especially land, finance, public-private partnership – for development purposes; bolstering reasonable decentralisation, while enhancing inspections and keeping powers in check via the legal system.

For human resources, the Party wants a priority on high-quality human resources for leadership and management and key positions, based on “comprehensive and radical transformation of education and training quality in tandem with recruitment and incentive policies”; promoting research, transfer, application and development of science and technology, innovation; promoting the aspirations for national development, people’s sense of unity and national pride in nation-building and defence efforts.

The Resolution also states the demand for “modern and synchronous” social and economic infrastructure, with a focus on national key transport projects, climate adaptation projects, and information and communications projects to serve national digital transformation and the development of a digital economy and society.

VNS

Pham Xuan Thang, member of the Party Central Committee and Secretary of the Hai Duong provincial Party Committee, speaks at the meeting on March 1 (Photo: VNA)

It will shift to a new status, both drastically fighting the coronavirus and taking action to conduct socio-economic development tasks.

This was decided by the Standing Board of the provincial Party Committee at a meeting on March 1 reviewing anti-COVID-19 efforts.

The coronavirus broke out in Hai Duong province on January 27.

The hotspot in Chi Linh has now been eliminated, while the one in Cam Giang district is under control. Relevant forces are also ramping up efforts to address a cluster in Kim Thanh district, which has been sealed off, as soon as possible.

Applauding the province’s sense of responsibility, Tran Nhu Duong, Deputy Director of the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology and head of the Ministry of Health’s working group, pointed out that its greatest success is that there haven’t been any related fatalities, testing capacity has increased dozens of times, and nearly 11,000 groups for COVID-19 monitoring, prevention, and control were set up in the community with the participation of over 25,000 people.

He also warned, however, about a possible resurgence of the virus, and asked the province to view fighting COVID-19 as a regular and ongoing task in the “new normal”.

Secretary of the provincial Party Committee Pham Xuan Thang said that, from March 3, Hai Duong will carry out 10 groups of anti-COVID-19 solutions and five groups of socio-economic development solutions.

As the outbreak may return, the entire local political system will not lower its guard and will remain on alert and be stringent in the fight, he stated.

As of the afternoon of February 28, Hai Duong had recorded 665 cases of COVID-19 in this new outbreak, with 297 recoveries. More than 16,000 people were sent to concentrated quarantine sites.

Authorities have also strictly dealt with violations of rules on disease prevention and control, imposing fines totalling over 3.4 billion VND (147,000 USD).

Loship will use the investment to expand its delivery network, human resource, technology and market. — Photo tvphapluat.vn

HÀ NỘI — Loship, Việt Nam’s fast-growing one-hour-delivery e-commerce startup, has announced its latest investment from Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn.

Tallinn participated in Loship’s Series C funding through his investment vehicle MetaPlanet Holdings.

This capital injection marks Loship as the first portfolio company of MetaPlanet in Việt Nam and Southeast Asia. The investment comes four months after the startup secured capital in a bridge round led by Vulpes Investment Management.

According to Loship CEO Nguyễn Hoàng Trung, the fresh capital will be spent on expanding the firm’s delivery network, human resource, technology and market.

“A huge portion of the funding will be poured into upgrading our app and developing technologies in Loship,” Trung said, adding that they will also ramp up their marketing strategies to cement Loship’s presence in the domestic market.

“It didn’t take me very long to realize Loship was on to something,” Loship quoted Tallinn as saying in its announcement.

“MetaPlanet is planning to pay more attention to the rapidly growing economies in Southeast Asia. So I’m delighted to be off to a strong start in Việt Nam by adding Loship as our first portfolio company there.”

Founded in 2017, Loship traces its roots back to Lozi, a review app allowing users to find food, beverage, and coffee shops, before transitioning into a one-hour-delivery services platform.

Loship has closed its series A and B rounds from investors such as South Korea’s Smilegate Investment, Hana Financial Group, DTNI, and Golden Gate Ventures. — VNS