Vietnam News Agency (VNA) respectfully introduces the full text of the speech by General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong at the opening of the 9th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee:

General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong delivers the opening speech at the 9th Central Conference, 13th tenure. Photo: Tri Dung/VNA

Dear Central Committee,

Dear Conference attendees,

According to the program just approved by the Central Committee, the 9th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee will discuss the following issues: Outline of documents to be submitted to the 14th National Party Congress; preparation for directing the conduct of Party congresses at all levels towards the 14th National Party Congress; and a number of other important contents.

First of all, on behalf of the Politburo and the Secretariat, I would like to warmly welcome and congratulate all comrades attending this Conference, and sincerely send to all comrades my warmest regards and best wishes.

According to the Working Regulations, the Central Party Office has sent draft documents of the Conference for your consideration in advance. Here, I would like to express some suggestive, emphatic, and problematic opinions, hoping that you will pay attention during the process of study, discussion, and decision-making.

Opening session of the 9th Central Conference, 13th tenure. Photo: Tri Dung/VNA

1. On preparing draft outlines of documents to be submitted to the 14th National Party Congress

According to the plan, the 14th National Congress of the Party is expected to be held in early 2026, after exactly one 5-year term of the entire Party, people and army striving to implement the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress, the 10-year Socio-Economic Development Strategy 2021 - 2030 and our country has gone through 40 years of renovation, 50 years of completely liberating the South and reunifying the country and towards the 100th anniversary of our Party's founding.

This will be a major political event, a very important milestone on the path of prosperous and everlasting development of our country and our people; encouraging, cheering, motivating, and orienting our entire Party, people, and army to be proud and confident under the glorious flag of the Party, to continue to firmly adhere to the goal of national independence and socialism, to comprehensively and synchronously promote the renovation process, to rapidly and sustainably develop the country, to firmly protect the Fatherland, to build an increasingly rich, democratic, prosperous, civilized, and happy Vietnam; to strive to successfully achieve the goals by 2030 when our Party turns 100 years old, and by 2045 when the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, turns 100 years old.

In the past time, implementing the Resolution of the 8th Central Conference of the 13th tenure, the Document Subcommittee, the Socio-Economic Subcommittee and the Party Charter Subcommittee have urgently and seriously prepared the drafts of the Political Report, Socio-Economic Report, Party Building and Implementation Report; asking for the Politburo's opinion to continue to complete them to submit to the Central Committee for consideration and comments at this Conference.

Although it is only a draft outline, this is a very important initial step, guiding the preparation of quality documents for the 14th National Party Congress. I hope that the Central Committee will spend time carefully studying the documents, discussing and giving opinions on the specific proposals stated in the Submissions and the draft Outline Report, first of all on the following issues: Theme and motto of the Congress; title of the Political Report, Socio-Economic Report, Report on Party Building and Implementation of the Party Charter; structure and major contents of the outlines of the reports, especially the issues that need to be focused on and clarified in the process of developing the documents mentioned in the draft Detailed Outline of the Political Report and the Submission of the Document Subcommittee.

During the discussion, it is also necessary to clarify the nature, objectives, requirements and scope of each report and the relationship between the reports. The Political Report is the central document of the Congress, with the task of continuing to concretize the Party Platform to lead the entire Party, the entire people and the entire army to build and defend the Fatherland in the new term. The content of the Political Report must be highly general in terms of issues related to the Party's viewpoints, thoughts, guidelines, policies and strategies in all areas of social life.

The Socio-Economic Report, the Report on Party Building and Implementation of the Party Charter are specialized and in-depth reports on the implementation of socio-economic development tasks and Party building and rectification, which are specific bases to demonstrate the correctness of the assessments and assessments of the situation and the thorough understanding and concretization of the major orientations on guidelines, policies and solutions outlined in the Political Report; they need to be consistent with the viewpoints and major orientations stated in the Political Report, but not overlap with the Political Report. In particular, the Report on Party Building and Implementation of the Party Charter needs to clarify the theoretical and practical basis for supplementing and amending the Party Charter (if any) and drafting a new Party Charter to be submitted to the 14th Congress for consideration and decision.

The draft outline of the documents submitted to this Conference only provides orientations, is open in nature with many different options for the Central Committee to give opinions and guidance, and select one step, then continue to research and prepare according to the process, through discussion steps at Party Congresses at all levels, and finally the Central Committee will decide to submit to the National Congress of the Party. Regarding the structure of the reports, it needs to be decided early at this Conference, in order to complete the draft outline and compile detailed content. Regarding the writing style, there should also be innovation to make it lively, concise, easy to understand, easy to remember, easy to do, and easy to check the organization and implementation.

Party and State leaders and delegates attending the 9th Central Conference, 13th tenure. Photo: Tri Dung/VNA

2. On the orientation of preparing for party congresses at all levels towards the 14th National Congress of the Party

To unify leadership and direction in the preparation and conduct of Party Congresses at all levels towards the 14th National Party Congress, the Politburo needs to issue a Directive on this issue. This is an extremely important task, ensuring the success of Party Congresses at all levels and contributing to the success of the 14th National Party Congress, and needs to be commented on by Central Committee comrades.

Recently, the Politburo has directed the summary of the implementation of Directive No. 35-CT/TW, dated May 30, 2019 of the 13th Politburo on this issue; affirmed that the results and lessons learned need to be inherited and promoted; at the same time, pointed out the limitations and shortcomings that need to be learned from and promptly adjusted. On that basis, a new draft Directive was drafted and submitted to the Central Executive Committee for comments to complete before promulgation.

I request that comrades pay attention to discussing in detail the Submission and the draft Directive, focusing on clarifying the purpose, requirements, and content of Party Congresses at all levels and the work of preparing personnel and electing Party Committees, especially regarding the structure and number of Party Committees of provinces and centrally run cities; the proportion of young cadres, female cadres, and ethnic minority cadres of provincial and municipal Party Committees; standards and ages for participating in provincial and municipal Party Committees (regarding the age of re-election and first-time participation in Party Committees when the retirement age has been raised to 60 for women and 62 for men); on Party Committee elections and election of delegates to attend Party Congresses at higher levels...

Dear comrades,

Although the content of the Central Conference's agenda is not much, it is very important for the completion of the political tasks of the 13th Central Executive Committee in preparing documents for the 14th National Party Congress and directing the preparation of Party Congresses at all levels towards the 14th National Party Congress. Therefore, the Central Committee and the comrades attending the Conference are requested to promote their intelligence and sense of responsibility, focus on research, discuss thoroughly, give opinions to complete the reports and projects and consider and decide at the end of the session.

In that spirit, I hereby declare open the 9th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee. I wish our Conference great success.

Thank you very much!

According to VNA