Socialist Republic of Vietnam

Ha Noi, March 24 (VNA) -- General Secretary of the Viet Nam Communist Party Central Committee Le Kha Phieu said the 10-day working meeting of the committee's 11th plenum, second phase, had fulfilled its agenda.

This was to continue the assessment and completion of the draft documents and list of candidates to be submitted to next month's ninth National Party Congress.

Mr.Phieu, who was speaking at the clossing session in Ha Noi today, March 24, said:

"Preparing documents for the ninth Congress meant the preparation of the orientation for building, developing and defending the country and the orientation for building the Party in the early years of the new century. Because it was such a very important task, all Party organisations, from Party cells to the Party Central Committee, and Party members, had devoted time, effort and intellect to it.

"Discussing Party affairs means discussing the affairs of the people and of the country. Therefore, people of various age groups, occupations, nationalities, and religions inside and outside the country contributed diverse, whole-hearted opinions, reflecting the firm solidarity of the nation, people's trust in the Party, and the fact that the Party and people are of one mind.

"The opinions showed that almost all Party members and people are in agreement with the fundamental contents of the draft Political Report. At the same time, they supplemented, analysed and brought more light to many important issues. Especially worthy of note were their analyses of the persistent way of national independence and socialism; corruption and bureaucracy, which in the opinion of many, are a major threat that hinders the country's development and threatens the time-honoured existence of our regime; the development of education and training, science-technology and the care for people's health; raising the knowledge and skills of workers while fostering the young; the industrialisation and modernisation of agriculture and rural areas; attending to regions inhabited by minority people, remote areas, and areas that have special difficulties or are calamity-prone; social equality, maintenance of principles; and raising knowledge in parallel with the enhancement of ethical standards and giving more and proper attention to social issues.

The General Secretary said:

"The people and Party members particularly emphasized the continuance of Party building and strengthening at its strategic and grassroots levels, requiring Party members, Party and State officials to work closely with the people and grassroots units, to drill themselves in paractice and study and raise their revolutionary virtues for the people's happiness.

"The Party CC respecfully and seriously accepted the correct opinions of the people and made another step toward completing the draft documents to be submitted to the congress.

"Other opinions providing specific detailed measures and dealing with various sectors will be studied during the process of implementing the resolutions of the ninth Party Congress.

"The collection and assessment of comments about and contributions [to the draft political report] made by the people and Party members had been not only a job for the Office of the Party Central Committee and the Document Board.

"Local delegates and delegations, as well as units nominated to take part in the Party Congress, had to spend time hearing and reading the comments, studying and assessing them with the highest sense of responsibility before contributing their ideas to the documents when they attend the National Party Congress.

"Party members, cadres, Party Committees, all administrations and mass organizations should diligently collect the comments and insert the correct opinions and recommendations into action programmes to overcome their own short comings; drill and build themselves, strengthen the Party and its organisations in the political system, consolidate and improve its organization, educate and train Party members, and successfully implement the tasks set for 2001.

"The preparations for selecting candidates for nomination at the ninth congress is together with preparing the draf documents are a task of great importance.

"At the Eleventh Plenum, the Central Committee continued this preparation of selecting personnel in accordance with the orientation defined by previous Party Plenums and actively prepared nominations for the ninth National Congress in order to elect those who are qualified and represent our Party and the people's intellect, firmness and virtue, thus ensuring political inheritance, continuity, political stability, renewal and development, and attached importance to quality and standards with regard to a rational number and composition.

"The Political Bureau submitted the initial results of its preparation for the nomination of personnel to the Central Committee, providing it with necessary documents and information to help it consider and decide.

"The Central Committee members studied, discussed and considered their selection of the best formula with high sense of responsibility. This is now the base for subsequent preparatory steps that will allow the 12th Central Committee Plenum to finalize the preparatory work for nominating personnel at the ninth National Party Congress.

"During the preparatory process for personnel nomination, the Central Committee seriously undertook self-criticism and criticism based on Party principles and comradeship. Members heard opinions from revolutionary veterans, Party members and people at both their work and residence. As a result, they came to clear conclusions about a number of denunciations and discipline for a number of comrades for wrong-doing, thus showing a spirit of democracy, solidarity, righteousness, a high sense of responsibility, in strict conformity with Party principles and order.

"The ninth National Party Congress is a congress of intellect, democracy, solidarity and renovation. The entire Party, people and army should promote the Party and nation's glorious traditions; strengthen solidarity and unanimity within the Party and between the Party, whose nucleus is the Party Central Committee, and the people, and spare no effort in emulating for the successful accomplishment of revolutionary tasks, socio-economic development, improvement of the spiritual and material life of the people, firmly maintaining stability, ensuring security and defence, expanding foreign relations and in so doing contribute to the ninth National Party Congress while continuously and steadily taking the revolutionary cause on the road to building socialism and firmly defending the Fatherland of socialist Viet Nam".--VNA