The fourth plenum of the Party Central Committee that opened in Hà Nội on Monday. — VNA/VNS Photo Phương Hoa

HÀ NỘI — Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng said that the fourth plenum of the Party Central Committee would focus on measures and policies on Party building, driving out moral degradation, corruption, and other deviations from Party ideology.

The Party chief stressed that Party building and rectification is a “key issue for survival importance” to the Party and the political system in his address speech to the plenum as the session opened on Monday in Hà Nội.

“It’s no coincidence that the Party Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Secretariat is attentive to this issue and frequently gives out directions on the implementation of the tasks,” he said.

There have been notable initial achievements and progress made in this regard, but misconducts and moral degradation has not been “fundamentally eliminated,” and even turned into more sophisticated problems that could lead to unpredictable consequences, he said.

That’s why the 13th National Party Congress held earlier this year focused on developing an increasingly solid and pure Party and political system, in which a commitment was made to keep the work in line with the resolutions of the fourth plenums of the 11th-tenure and 12th-tenure Party Central Committee, according to the party leader.

Emphasising that the Politburo's reports and related documents sent to the Party Central Committee’s members and subcommittees have stated quite fully the contents related to the agenda, Party chief Trọng asked participants to give their feedback on the necessity and correctitude of the promulgation of the Conclusion of this plenum on continuing to implement the Resolution of the fourth plenum of the 12th Party Central Committee with the new name, topic, and parameters in line with the draft Conclusion.

Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng delivered the opening speech. — VNA/VNS Photo Phương Hoa

He wants the participants to specify what needs to be adjusted or supplemented, especially on whether the Party building and rectification process should be ‘attached’ with political system building as stated in the resolution of the fourth plenum of the previous term and whether fighting corruption should go hand in hand with prevention of moral decline and ideology deviation, moral and lifestyle problems.

Trọng said the plenum should be able to correctly assess the situation and deliberate the causes, identify the goal and the guiding orientations, as well as the appropriate measures to address each issue, especially ‘breakthrough’ measures in this tenure of the Party Central Committee.

At the same time, he inquired the participants to focus on key measures to build a good contingent of cadres at all levels, especially at ‘strategic level’, who possess virtues, capacity, and reputation; to continue with the innovation of political thoughts and study through self-criticism and critique activities; stepping up inspections and supervision, and boosting the role of elected bodies, the Việt Nam’s Fatherland Front and socio-political organisations in Party building efforts.

He also asked for updates to Regulation 47, dated November 11, 2011, by the 11th-tenure Party Central Committee, which provided for a list of do-and-don’ts for Party members.

The core content of the Regulation is relevant today and appropriate, he said, but some revisions are needed for it to keep up with the demands for stronger measures against misconducts and maintenance of Party discipline, as well as some items have proved to be rather impractical or unclear in real-life implementation, or have become outdated as the laws changed.

In this plenum, slated to last until Thursday, the Party Central Committee will also focus on discussing COVID-19 pandemic prevention and control and the viewpoints and policies on this work in the new situation; socio-economic situation in 2021 and socio-economic development plan in 2022; the implementation of the State budget in 2021, the State budget estimate in 2022 and the State budget plan for 2022-24; and the policy on delaying the implementation of salary policy reform under Resolution No 27-NQ/TW of the 7th Plenum of the 12th Party Central Committee. 

Trọng said since earlier this year, the COVID-19 pandemic, with more dangerous variants, has caused severe damage to the world, including ASEAN and Việt Nam, forcing many countries to revise their pandemic response.

He said that the participants during this plenum should study the documents and based on the situation in their localities/sectors to give out an objective, not unreasonably pessimistic but also not too overly look through rose-tinted glasses, and comprehensive reports on the pandemic fight, and the socio-economic developments in the first nine months and forecast for the rest of the year, which would help formulate the directions for the year-end and 2022 as well.

At the beginning of the plenum, participants also observed a minute’s silence in commemoration of people, officers, and soldiers who died during the COVID-19 pandemic in Việt Nam. — VNS