Socialist Republic of Vietnam

(Take 2 of 4)


Ha Noi, Feb. 2 (VNA) --

III. Major Issues on the Path towards Socialism

Experiences and achievements recorded over the past 15 years of renovation have proved the soundness of the Platform approved by the Seventh CPV Congress and shed more light on the road towards socialism in Viet Nam. The Communist Party and people of Viet Nam are determined to advance towards socialism on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and Ho Chi Minh Thought.

To build socialism bypassing the path of capitalist development and create substantial changes in all fields of the society make it an extremely difficult and complicated task. It needs a long period of transition through different stages of development and with different forms of economic and social organization. Social life will go through a struggle between the new and the old in various areas. The country has, since the Eighth Party Congress, shifted to a new road - that of accelerating industrialisation and modernisation to achieve the goal of turning Viet Nam into a basically industrial country by 2020. In the current stage of development, we have to finish some tasks left from the previous stage.

The main motive for national development should come from the overall strength of the entire people and national unity based on the worker-farmer-intellectual alliance, harmonisation of individual, collective and social interests, and a better use of the potential and resources of all economic sectors and the entire society.

The Party and the Government consistently advocate pursuing a long-term policy of developing a multi-sectoral market economy under the State management in the direction of socialism, or in short, a socialist-oriented market economy.

IV. Economic Policies and Development Strategy.

The Party's economic policies are to speed up industrialisation and modernisation, build an independent, self-governing economy and an industrial country, give priority to developing the production force while building production relations along the socialist line; bring into full play the internal resources of the entire nation while attracting foreign assistance and taking the initiative in integrating into the global economy in order to ensure a rapid, efficient and sustainable development; to couple economic growth with cultural development, gradual improvement of the population's material and spiritual life, ensure social progress and justice, and combine socio-economic development with strengthening national defence and security.

The overall goal of the 10-year (2001-2010) economic development strategy is to lift our country out of the state of underdevelopment and considerably improve the population's material, cultural and spiritual life. The strategy also aims to lay the foundation for a basically industrial, modernised Viet Nam by 2020, further develop human resources, scientific and technological capacity, infrastructure, economic potential and national defence and security, give shape to a socialist-oriented market economy, and raise the national prestige on the international arena.

2010 is set to obtain a gross domestic product (GDP) twice as much as this year's GDP, largely shift the economic and labour structure, thus reducing the agricultural workforce to about 50 percent of the national workforce.

The five-year (2001-2005) plan is a very important step for the implementation of the 2001-2010 strategy aimed at a high and sustainable economic growth, fast shifting of the economic and labour structure towards industrialisation and modernisation, significant improvement of the economy's quality, competitiveness and efficiency. It also aims to expand and raise the efficiency of the external economic relations, make great progress in human resource development, including education and training, science and technology, to effectively solve the unemployment problem, basically eliminate hunger and reduce the poverty rate, and control social ills so as to stabilise and improve the population's life. The plan also calls for further strengthening socio-economic infrastructure and make an important progress in legalising the Socialist-oriented market economy to create a prerequisite for the next period of development. The plan emphasizes maintaining political stability and social order, and firmly safeguarding national independence, territorial integrity and national security.

Efforts should be made to obtain an economic growth rate of at least 7 percent per annum.

1. Economic development, industrialisation and modernisation are the centre task.

The industrialisation process in Viet Nam should and can take a shorter time than other countries by flexibly combining normal steps and leaps.

Socio-economic development should be rapidly, simultaneously, efficiently and sustainably stepped up while the economic structure should be geared to industrialisation and modernisation.

2. Developing a multi-sectoral economy.

3. Continuing to simultaneously create components of the market economy, strengthen the State's role of economic management.

4. Properly settling social issues, improving human resource quality.--VNA (To be continued)