Closing speech by General Secretary To Lam at the Conference...

People's Army Newspaper respectfully introduces the closing speech of General Secretary To Lam .

"Dear Politburo members, Secretariat members, Central Party Committee members,

Dear all conference attendees,

After 3 days of urgent work, with a high sense of responsibility, the Central Committee comrades discussed democratically, listened, and frankly exchanged many new and important issues and reached a high consensus on important and core contents. The Central Committee voted to pass the Conference Resolution with an absolute majority. It can be affirmed that the 11th Central Committee Conference, 13th tenure, has completed all the contents and programs set out. Many Central Committee comrades suggested that the Politburo recognize this as a historic conference, discussing historic decisions in the new revolutionary period of our country.

General Secretary To Lam delivers the closing speech of the 11th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee. Photo: VNA

On behalf of the Politburo and the Secretariat, I acknowledge, appreciate and commend the Central Committee's spirit of active, responsible, proactive, scientific, creative, decisive, effective and innovative work; the thoughtful, thorough, focused and improved preparation and service work for the conference by the Sub-committees, the Central Party Office and relevant agencies. Here, I would like to summarize, emphasize and conclude a number of issues to unify leadership and direct implementation:

Firstly: The Central Executive Committee highly agrees with the proposed content stated in the submissions, reports, and projects in the working group on continuing to reorganize the apparatus of the political system, reorganize administrative units, and organize two-level local governments. In which:

The Central Executive Committee emphasized: Continuing to reorganize the apparatus of the political system is an unprecedented strategic decision with the highest goal of rapid, stable and sustainable development of the country, better care for people's lives, building a streamlined government apparatus, shifting from passive management to proactive service to the people, creating development, and having the capacity to effectively organize and implement the Party's policies into practical life in the era of development and prosperity.

This reorganization of local administrative units is built on the spirit of science, breakthrough, creativity, close to reality with a long-term vision, at least 100 years, ensuring the formation and expansion of new economic, social and cultural development space suitable for national development. The local government after the reorganization must ensure streamlining, efficiency, closeness to the people, meeting the requirements of modern social governance, achieving the goals of rapid and sustainable growth; creating new positions and strengths for the task of ensuring national defense, security, and foreign affairs; creating momentum and driving force for economic development, focusing on promoting the private economy; accelerating the development of science and technology and innovation; taking better care of the material and spiritual life of the people.

The restructuring of the model and organization of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations and mass organizations assigned by the Party and the State must be truly streamlined, ensuring no duplication or overlap in functions and tasks; no administrativeization of activities, strong focus on residential areas, close to the people, serving the people in the spirit of "focusing on and practicing people as the root", must truly be the "extended arm" of the Party to each household, each person; must take care of the legitimate and legal rights and interests of union members, association members and the people.

Strictly implement the principle of the Party's unified leadership in building the apparatus, personnel work, and management of the cadre team and payroll of the political system. Continue to innovate, perfect and synchronously and strictly implement regulations on personnel work at all levels, sectors and localities according to the principles of publicity, transparency, strengthening control of power, linking power with personal responsibility. Identify, take preventive measures, and resolutely fight and strictly handle acts of corruption, waste, negativity, causing disunity, seeking positions, power, and factionalism in the process of arranging the apparatus, handling public assets, etc.

The Central Executive Committee highly agreed on the following policies: Regarding the organization of local government at two levels: Provincial level (provinces, centrally-run cities), communal level (communes, wards, special zones under provinces, cities); the number of provincial-level administrative units after the merger is 34 provinces and cities (28 provinces and 6 centrally-run cities) with names and administrative-political centers determined according to the principles stated in the submissions and projects; ending the operation of district-level administrative units after the National Assembly resolves to amend and supplement a number of articles of the 2013 Constitution and the Law on Organization of Local Government 2025 (amended); merging communal-level administrative units ensures that the whole country reduces the current number of communal-level administrative units by about 60-70%.

Agree on the policy of establishing local party organizations corresponding to the provincial and communal administrative systems; ending the activities of district-level party committees; the establishment of local party organizations is carried out in accordance with the Party Charter and regulations of the Central Committee.

With the new administrative organization model, the provincial level is both the level that implements policies from the Central Government and the level that issues policies in the province and city, and directly directs and manages the activities of the commune level in the area. The commune level mainly implements policies issued by the Central Government and the provincial level; is further decentralized and has the authority to issue legal documents to decide on the organization of law enforcement in the area and decide on issues under its authority.

Agree on the policy of arranging, streamlining, and merging the agencies of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, socio-political organizations, and mass organizations assigned by the Party and the State at the central, provincial, and communal levels as stated in the report and project of the Party Committee of the Vietnam Fatherland Front and central organizations; agree on the policy of ending the activities of civil servant unions and armed forces unions, and reducing the level of union dues paid by cadres, civil servants, public employees, and workers. Agree on the policy of continuing to arrange and streamline the apparatus of the People's Court and the People's Procuracy; ending the activities of the People's Court and the People's Procuracy at the high and district levels; establishing a system of People's Courts and the People's Procuracy with 3 levels: the People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuracy; People's Courts and the People's Procuracy at the provincial, centrally-run city, and regional levels (the system of military courts and procuracies remains the same as the current model).

The Central Executive Committee agreed on the policy of amending and supplementing the Constitution and laws of the State related to regulations on local governments to serve the organization and apparatus arrangement of the political system; regulations on the Vietnam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations; ensuring completion before June 30, 2025; effective from July 1, 2025; stipulating a transition period to ensure smooth, uninterrupted operations, in accordance with the plan and roadmap for arrangement and merger; The Central Committee requested that the National Assembly, the Government and relevant agencies closely and effectively coordinate to implement tasks on institutional improvement.

Focus highly on performing these tasks well, strongly innovate thinking and working methods, strive to thoroughly remove institutional barriers, difficulties and obstacles in 2025 to create a legal corridor, create a foundation for development, especially issues related to bidding, budget, public investment, private economy, science and technology, innovation, digital transformation; create a solid and favorable foundation for the Revolution in arranging and streamlining the apparatus of the political system; clear bottlenecks and resources; promote thorough decentralization associated with streamlining the apparatus, effective and efficient operations; create new development space for localities and the whole country.

The development and promulgation of laws and policies must closely follow the Party's leadership, closely follow the practical situation and the specificity of the revolution in organizational structure, not allowing the situation of waiting for laws and mechanisms to lead to delays and lost opportunities; creating an open, transparent, safe, low-cost business environment; thoroughly handling institutional "bottlenecks" to turn them into resources and competitive advantages, making Vietnam one of the leading countries in administrative reform and creative startups to be able to catch up, go along with, and surpass the leading countries.

Second: Regarding the group of issues to continue preparing for the 14th National Party Congress and the election of deputies to the 16th National Assembly and People's Councils at all levels for the 2026-2031 term.

Regarding the draft documents serving the 14th National Party Congress: The Central Committee unanimously assessed that the drafts this time were edited to be concise and brief (reduced by about 30%-35%), but the content is quite complete and profound, ensuring both the document nature and comprehensiveness and ensuring high actionability, which can help with immediate implementation, updating, and supplementing many major issues, and is a model for the drafting of documents by Party organizations.

Through discussion and exchange, the Central Committee reached a high consensus and realized the need to immediately implement a number of major solutions that have been unanimously approved in the draft documents, and at the same time concretize them in the documents for the 2025-2030 term of the Party organizations, including: (i) Agreeing on the highest goal of the 14th Congress is to decide on strategic issues to ensure "stability, development and improvement of people's lives"; all viewpoints, goals, tasks and solutions in the draft documents must be unified, synchronous, consistent and create a combined strength to achieve this goal. (ii) Agreeing on the high requirements of the coming period are "high-quality development, rapid development and sustainable development", "proactive, self-reliant and autonomous in development".

From there, the Subcommittees are required to continue reviewing the Central Committee's opinions, fully supplementing the difficulties and objective challenges that must be faced, the shortcomings and limitations that have not been overcome over many terms, the tasks and solutions to adapt to the new situation, new opportunities and challenges with new thinking, new revolutionary ways of doing things, surpassing oneself to ensure proactive, autonomous, fast and sustainable development; at the same time, the Party Committees are required to focus on thoroughly discussing the tasks and solutions in the process of preparing and organizing the congresses to continue contributing to the completion of the documents of the 14th National Party Congress and the documents of the congresses at their level. (iii) Unifying the strong determination to "establish a new growth model", "building a modern national education, on par with the region and the world" are fundamental solutions to overcome the risk of falling behind. In the new growth model, taking science and technology, innovation and national digital transformation as the main driving force, the private economy (including both the domestic private sector and the foreign-invested sector) is the most important driving force of the national economy; strengthening the Party's leadership role and state management of the private economy. At the same time, the Central Committee also highly agreed that in the new revolutionary stage, it is necessary to focus on identifying and strongly implementing the connotation of "Our Party is ethical and civilized", model points for "socialist" provinces and "socialist" communes.

Regarding the work of organizing the development and implementation of the Party's Charter: The Central Executive Committee discussed, gave opinions and basically agreed to approve the draft Orientation for personnel work of the 14th Party Central Executive Committee; supplementing personnel planning for the 14th Party Central Executive Committee; contents of amendments and supplements to the Central Executive Committee's Regulations on the implementation of the Party's Charter; Regulations on the Party's inspection, supervision and discipline work; contents of amendments and supplements to Directive No. 35-CT/TW dated June 14, 2024 and Conclusion No. 118-KL/TW dated January 18, 2025 of the Politburo on Party congresses at all levels towards the 14th National Congress of the Party; orientations for the election of deputies to the 16th National Assembly and People's Councils at all levels for the 2026-2031 term. The Central Committee requests that the Politburo, Party committees, Party organizations, and relevant agencies urgently implement the contents that have been agreed upon and approved by the Central Committee.

Things to do immediately: The Central Executive Committee requests that, immediately after the conference, Party committees, Party organizations, agencies, units, localities and leaders immediately deploy 7 tasks:

(1) Proactively and actively do a good job of disseminating, propagating, mobilizing, and orienting ideology in your agency, unit, locality, and organization as well as participating in orienting public opinion, ensuring solidarity, consensus, and high unity among cadres, party members, civil servants, public employees, workers, and people of all walks of life regarding the Party's major policies.

(2) Focus on directing and drastically implementing tasks to reorganize and streamline the apparatus according to the projects and plans approved by the Central Government.

(3) Take the initiative in tasks of arranging, assigning, and using cadres, civil servants, and public employees, ensuring the retention of talented people, and implementing well the regime and policies for those affected and affected; prepare a full legal basis, creating the most favorable conditions for arrangement; take the initiative in plans for managing, using, and handling assets, offices, and official residences, absolutely avoiding loss, waste, and negativity.

(4) Ensure that agencies, units and organizations operate continuously, smoothly, effectively and efficiently before, during and after the arrangement, without interruption of work, without leaving vacant tasks, areas or fields, and without affecting the normal operations of agencies, units, organizations and people.

(5) Regarding the organization of congresses at all levels in merged and consolidated localities: We organize congresses at the commune and provincial levels immediately after the administrative units are reorganized. Therefore, we need to lead and direct very closely to ensure that the congresses are in accordance with regulations and are substantive, not formal. The Politburo will issue a new Directive to replace Directive 35 with specific guidance on the organization of congresses at all levels in the new spirit.

I would like to note two more issues: (i) Regarding documents: The provincial level must soon supplement and complete the documents of its Congress based on the draft of the new Central Document. For provinces that are merged or consolidated, the Standing Committees must discuss with each other to develop the documents of the new Provincial Congress. The documents must be developed in the spirit of the "expanded development space" of the new province. It is not a mechanical amalgamation of documents of the old province into documents of the new province. The merged communes must also follow this spirit. (ii) Regarding personnel: Many comrades are concerned about the issue of personnel arrangement when merging, consolidating and arranging personnel for the Congress. The Central agencies will have specific instructions on criteria and standards. I propose that the highest standard should be taken because of work requirements, then other criteria. The Standing Committees at the provincial level (with mergers and consolidations) must discuss this issue thoroughly with each other, creating high unity in implementation, especially in arranging heads of agencies after the merger. For issues that have not been agreed upon, the Politburo and Secretariat assigned to be in charge of the area will guide and direct (provinces also need to assign provincial Party Committee members to guide and direct the Commune-level Congress).

(6) Ensure the roadmap, progress, and procedures (especially the process of collecting community opinions according to the grassroots democracy regulations) on amending the legal corridor, the time to end district-level activities, merge communes, and arrange and merge provinces as approved in the resolution.

(7) Well organize major commemorative activities in 2025, focusing on the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification Day; the 135th birthday of President Ho Chi Minh; the 80th anniversary of the August Revolution and National Day September 2, along with commemorative activities of each locality.

The Central Committee requested the Subcommittees preparing for the 14th Congress to promptly receive additional comments and suggestions, complete the draft documents (especially the part on socio-economic development orientation for regions and localities after the merger) and send them to the Party Congresses at all levels for discussion and comments, continue to complete the draft documents, and report to the Central Executive Committee at the 12th Central Conference for cadres, Party members and people to discuss and give opinions.

Immediately after this conference, the Central Steering Committee for the Summary of Resolution 18 will meet to specify the tasks to be done, develop plans and roadmaps for implementing tasks in the coming time, and assign members of the Politburo and Secretariat to direct, guide, inspect, and urge. Also next week, the Politburo and Secretariat will organize a national cadre conference to disseminate and unify the awareness and approach throughout the political system regarding the policies just approved by the 11th Central Conference.

The Politburo will also soon issue a resolution on innovation in law-making and enforcement to meet development requirements in the new era and a resolution on private economic development to create new momentum along with Resolution No. 57 on breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation, national digital transformation and Resolution No. 59 on international integration in the new situation to resolutely achieve the GDP growth target of 8% or more by 2025, creating a foundation for continuous double-digit growth in the following years. Strive to achieve the goal that by 2030, Vietnam will become a developed country with modern industry and high average income; by 2045, it will become a developed country with high income.

Dear comrades,

The work ahead is very complicated, the reality of life is urgent, the people and Party members are waiting, the tasks ahead are very heavy and difficult. I think this is a great challenge, and at the same time an opportunity for each member of the Party Central Committee to demonstrate their sense of responsibility to the Party, the country and the people. The Central Executive Committee believes that, promoting the tradition of solidarity, resilience and indomitability of the nation, under the Party's talented and wise leadership, the joint efforts, consensus and struggles of the entire Party, the entire people and the entire army, we will definitely overcome all difficulties and challenges, and excellently complete the set goals, targets and tasks. We will definitely succeed.

Closing the conference, I wish you and your families good health, happiness and successful completion of your assigned tasks.

VNA

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Source: https://baodaknong.vn/phat-bieu-be-mac-cua-tong-bi-thu-to-lam-tai-hoi-nghi-lan-thu-11-ban-chap-hanh-trung-uong-dang-khoa-xiii-249188.html