HÀ NỘI — The seventh plenary session of the 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Việt Nam (CPV) concluded in Hà Nội on Saturday, completing all the agenda contents, focusing on key personnel building, wage reform and renewal of social insurance policies, after six working days. 

Members of the committee had given opinions, voted to adopt three resolutions on  three important projects, and a resolution of the session.
The projects  included the building of a contingent of senior officials, especially at strategic level with sufficient virtue, capacity and prestige on par with their assigned tasks in the new circumstance; the reform of wage policies; and the renewal of social insurance policies. 
Addressing the closing ceremony, CPV General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng highlighted the need of developing a contingent of officials, especially strategic officials meeting the requirements of the new period. 
He asked for resolute and persistent direction over the implementation of eight key groups of solutions and tasks set forth at the session, focusing on ideological, moral and lifestyle education among Party members as well as younger generations in association with the studying and following of late President Hồ Chí Minh’s example. 
It was necessary to renew and improve the quality of personnel work, while paying more attention to developing strategic personnel, and promoting the role of the community in the work, he said. 
The Party leader said that a highlight of the resolution of the 12th CPV Central Committee’s seventh session was the requirement to seek a new performance assessment method for officials, which was more objective and accurate, along with an effective mechanism to encourage them to overcome difficulties to improve themselves, and measures to control power, prevent bribery for job titles, fight against individualism in personnel work. 
He underscored the principle that all power must be controlled through mechanisms, and authority must go with responsibility. 
Meanwhile, it is vital to timely discover and handle violations of Party regulations and State’s law, tackling the abuse of power to conduct wrongful activities in personnel work or abetting activities of bribery for job titles. Inaccurate decisions on personnel work must be strictly withdrawn, while organisations and individuals committing violations in the field must be handled, he said. 
“We should strive to complete the institutionalisation of the resolution and translate it into Party regulations and State’s law on personnel work in the rest of the CPV Central Committee’s 12th tenure,” the Party leader said. 
“At the same time, it is a need to prepare personnel for the 13th Party Congress at all levels, focusing on the building of personnel for the Central Committee in the direction of improving the quality, quantity and structure,” he said, noting the proactive preparation of leading personnel of the Party, State, the Political Bureau and the Secretariat, who should stand out in intellectual, virtues and lifestyle. 
During the seventh plenary session, the Party Central Committee came up with instructions, goals, tasks, policies and measures to continue speeding up salary reform with many contents having breakthrough significance and high feasibility. 
For the public sector, it instructed the building of a new payroll system with one payroll based on position for those in the leadership in the political system, another based on profession for those not in the leadership, and three others for the armed forces. Allowances must be rearranged towards total allowances accounting for a maximum 30 per cent of total payroll. The head of a unit is allowed to use the allocated payroll and regular expenditure to hire experts and scientists with special talents and to use the bonus fund to award the unit’s employees periodically based on their work performance. 
For the enterprise sector, the Party Central Committee pointed to the need to continue completing the policy on regional minimal monthly wages to protect underprivileged workers. Enterprises, including the fully-owned State ones, are empowered to decide their salary policies. For State-owned enterprises, the State will regulate salary through its management tools and salary of its capital representative will not be included in salary payment for the executive board. 
The Party Central Committee urged the building and perfection of the system of job positions so it will serve as a foundation for developing the payroll for job positions, job titles and leading positions. 
It stressed the need to ratchet up the reform of social insurance policy to turn social insurance into a key pillar of the social security system, considering it an urgent and long-term task. 
To ensure the health of the social insurance fund in the long run, the Party Central Committee underscored the need to quickly supplement, revise and fix irrationalities in the retirement insurance mechanism. The retirement age would be raised under a proper roadmap regarding its suitability to specific groups and occupations. Gender equality must be ensured. Measures should be taken to deal with aging population and fast changes of the labour market and the introduction of new labour forms under Industry 4.0. 
At the sitting, the Party Central Committee spoke highly of the review of leadership in 2017 made by the Political Bureau and the Secretariat, asking the Political Bureau and the Secretariat to make more drastic instructions for the productive implementation of the set key tasks and visible, strong changes, so as to consolidate the trust of cadres, Party members and people to the Party. 
At the session, the Party Central Committee elected two supplementary members of the Secretariat and considered punishments for some Party members. 

“The seventh session of the 12th Party Central Committee was a success,” the Party chief said. 
“The session’s outcomes reflected a sense of responsibility, unity, and high consensus among the Party Central Committee, which will contribute importantly to cementing and promoting the achievements gained by the whole Party and people in the first half of the 12th tenure, and creating a new impetus for the comprehensive and synchronous reform, the building of a strong and pure Party, and the fast and sustainable development of the country,” he said. — VNS