HÀ NỘI – Improving the quality of growth should be a key focus of economic restructuring, Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng said yesterday.

Addressing the concluding session of the fourth plenary meeting of the 12^th Party Central Committee in Ha Noi, he also called for greater efforts in disbursing State Budget funds, mobilising resources to boost production and business, especially the farming sector, removing bottlenecks in coal consumption and promoting tourism. "These are needed to achieve a growth of 6.3-6.5 per cent this year," he said.

Improving the business climate and making the economy more competitive should also be part of the economic restructuring process, he added.

The Party Central Committee identified renewing the growth model to one propelled by economic productivity and competitiveness as a primary task in the coming months.  The country must gradually shift from the growth model which is based mainly on investment and export to one which is also based on the domestic market.

Other tasks the committee discussed included stabilising the macro economy, ensuring social welfare, stepping up international integration and building the Party.
Members agreed on the need to ensure democracy and social equality while responding to climate change, managing natural resources and protecting the environment.
They also expressed the nation’s resolve to combat corruption and waste, protect national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, maintain political stability and social order, and increase international integration.

The need for more investment in high-tech and sustainable agriculture was emphasised.
Regarding economic integration, the committee’s members agreed that effective implementation of new-generation free trade agreements would open up opportunities and help the country diversify its market and participate in the global supply chain.
Trọng said the nation would also focus on completing the socialist-oriented market institutions, facilitating start-ups, and developing special administrative and economic areas.

Importance would also be given to establishing smart urban areas as well as industrial and high-tech zones, he said.

The Party leader stressed the role of the private sector in driving economic growth, saying businesses were central to renovation and the transfer of scientific and technological advances.
He said that it was necessary to maintain the country’s foreign policy of independence, self-reliance, diversification and multilateralisation of relations while realising bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements.
Over the next ten years, considerable attention would be paid to building and implementing policies and measures to implement the agreements, he said.
The committee also outlined tasks in Party building, focusing on fighting degradation in political thought, morals and lifestyle.
The Party leader asked each Party Central Committee member to promote responsibility and work with Party committees and administrations to guide implementation Party Congress resolutions as well as those passed by the committee.

The Party Central Committee also thoroughly examined issues related to the construction of nuclear power plants in central Ninh Thuận Province, agreed with a paper by the Politburo on the project, and assigned its delegations to the Government and National Assembly to complete the report to be presented to the National Assembly. —VNS