CPVCC issues Resolution on international economic integration

The following is translation of the resolution for reference:

I - BACKGROUNDS

1- Since our country officially became member of the World Trade Organization in 2007, the process of active and proactive international economic integration has become increasingly intensive and extensive with numerous positive and comprehensive outcomes in various areas, especially:

- International economic integration has emerged as one of the major impetuses for socio-economic development, increased national aggregate power; accelerated the improvement of the socialist-oriented market economy institutions; expanded markets, fostered exports, lured a huge volume of capital, technology, knowledge, management expertise, and other important sources; created more jobs, improved intellectual standards as well as spiritual and material life of the people. The capacity of the contingent of cadres in charge of international integration from central to local levels has been enhanced; the organization and apparatus of State agencies have been consolidated and their performance has improved. Vietnamese businessman circle have made remarkable strides.

- International economic integration has made significant contribution to expanding and deepening our country’s relations with partners, creating the intertwinement of interests and contributing to the maintenance of a peaceful and stable environment for national development; firmly safeguarding independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Fatherland and political security, social order and safety; popularizing the image of the country and people [to the wider world] and improving the country’s prestige and position in the international arena.

2- However, shortcomings and weaknesses still remain in the process of international economic integration:

- The orientations and guidelines of the Party and policies and laws of the State on international economic integration sometimes have not been fully and timely grasped or seriously implemented. Due to one-sided, short-term and partial approach, opportunities from international economic integration have not been fully exploited while challenges have not been addressed effectively.

- International economic integration and domestic reforms, especially institutional reform have not been synchronously implemented and closely combined with the process of improving competitiveness to meet the requirements of protecting national defense and security, political security, social order and safety, environment and preserving and promoting national cultural identities.

- There remains a lack of close and effective coordination between international economic integration and integration in other fields. Long-term strategic interests of our country have not been highly intertwined with those of partners, especially key partners. Responding to fluctuations and addressing impacts arising from regional and international environments have been passive, perplexed, and incomprehensive.

3- Today, regional and international backgrounds have changed a lot with complicated and unpredictable changes. Apart from opportunities and advantages, our country still faces numerous difficulties and challenges in socio-economic development, protecting national defense and security, socio-political stability, and safeguarding a peaceful environment for fast and sustainable development.

The new-generation free trade agreements, once realized effectively, would create chances to expand and diversify markets with better preferential treatment, participate deeper in the global supply chain and production network; contribute to synchronous and comprehensive innovations, tap the nation’s potential and creativeness of people from all walks of life, improve living standards and national development level, reduce the percentage of manual labor. Our country can also have the opportunity to participate more deeply and actively in reshaping and reforming regional and international institutions, mechanisms and architectures that are conducive to protection of interests of the nation, organizations and individuals; ensure independence and self-reliance, and consolidate and maintain a peaceful and stable environment for development and protection of the Fatherland. Basically, Vietnamese enterprises have more opportunities to develop stronger and more creatively with higher competitiveness. Consumers have more choices for high quality goods and services with competitive prices and hygiene and environmental standards ensured.

However, it is not easy to overcome the remaining shortcomings and weaknesses and to implement new international commitments. Competition pressure is becoming increasingly fiercer, thus many sectors, businesses and products will encounter more difficulties. Higher and broader commitments, especially in terms of labor, employment and environment, if not thoroughly studied and well prepared with proper implementation roadmap, will negatively affect the process of institutional reform and development, and settlement of complicated and sensitive issues. The realization of the standards of the International Labor Organization also poses new challenges to State management and socio-political stability as well as the role and operation of the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labor.

The aforesaid opportunities and challenges have reciprocal relations and may be interchangeable. Opportunities may become challenges if the former are not timely exploited and challenges could become opportunities if we could cope with actively.

II- GOALS AND GUIDING VIEWPOINTS

1- Goals: International economic integration and firm maintenance of socio-political stability aim to enhance the self-reliance of the economy, expand markets, take advantage of [foreign] capital-technology-knowledge-management expertise, ensure fast and sustainable development, improve living standards; preserve and promote national culture identities; firmly maintain independence, sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity; enhance prestige and position of Viet Nam in the international arena.

2- Guiding viewpoints

- Consistent pursuance of the foreign policy of independence and self-reliance; diversification and multi-lateralization of external relations; active and proactive international economic integration for national interests is the major strategic orientation to develop and protect the Fatherland. Creatively make use of lessons learned and well handle major relations, especially the relationship between independence, self-reliance of the economy and increasingly extensive and intensive international economic integration.

- International economic integration is the focus of international integration; integration in other sectors must support international economic integration. International economic integration is the work of the whole people in which businessmen, enterprises, and intellectuals take the lead. The State needs to focus on encouraging and creating favorable conditions for developing and enhancing the competitiveness of the nation, enterprises and Vietnamese products, and improving the level of the economy.

- Reform must be associated with international economic integration. Speed up reform and improvement of the law, mechanism and policy system; actively address emerging issues; closely supervise and effectively manage the process of implementing commitments of the new-generation free trade agreements, especially in such fields related to socio-political stability.

- Ensure the absolute leadership of the Party over the process of international economic integration, maintain socio-political stability in the context of joining new-generation free trade agreements. Improve the effectiveness of State management, promote the role of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations; respect and promote the mastership rights of the people, strengthen the power of national solidary block in international economic integration. Innovate the Party leadership over socio-political organizations, especially labor unions in line with requirements of the new period.

III- SOME MAJOR ORIENTATIONS AND POLICIES

1- General orientations and policies

- Satisfactorily handle the relationship between independence, self-reliance and international economic integration, build up a highly self-reliant economy resilient to international economic fluctuations; maintain macro-economic stability and economic security.

- Transform the growth model in association with restructuring the economy, considering it as the premise as well as corollary of international economic integration and the decisive solution to enhance internal force so as to take advantage of opportunities and overcome challenges, ensure fast and sustainable development. Direct criteria for evaluating the performance of international economic integration include export growth, growth quality, productivity, and competitiveness of the economy.

- Continue implementing the three strategic breakthroughs, creating a favorable business investment for fast and sustainable development; fruitfully pursuing international economic integration and maintaining political stability in the new context. Focus on studying and deploying new measures to promote the aggregate strengths and creativeness of the business community and businessmen; mobilize all domestic and foreign resources for development investment.

- Within the next five to ten years, focus on effective implementation of international commitments, develop mechanisms and policies on trade remedies and settlement of international disputes; issue proper policies to support low-competitive sectors to better themselves; enhance training to improve the capacity of cadres and international law capability, develop technical barriers and active preventive measures.

2- Specific orientations and policies

2.1- Improving awareness

- Enhance ideological work, improve the awareness of cadres, party members and people from all walks of life about international economic integration in particular and international integration in general. Enhance understanding and social consensus, especially among businesses and businessmen on international agreements, particularly opportunities, challenges, and requirements of the new-generation free trade agreements through communication forms and contents that fit each sector, business association, business group and community.

- Focus on internal political protection work. Actively and timely detect and fight against wrong and hostile allegations and viewpoints; protect the guidelines and orientations of the Party on Fatherland development and protection in the process of international economic integration.

2.2- Improve legal system and enhance law enforcement capacity

- Expeditiously review, supplement and improve stipulation directly related to international economic integration in accordance with the Constitution, fully and rightly follow market economy rules and international economic integration commitments; translate international treaties into domestic law as committed, firstly regulations on trade, investment, intellectual property rights, technology transfer, labor, labor unions, etc. in order to take advantage of opportunities and overcome challenges and difficulties arising from the implementation of the new-generation free trade agreements.

- Improve awareness and legal capability, especially international law, international trade, firstly for key cadres of sectors and local authorities, businesses, and civil servants of legal departments, lawyers, and those directly involving in international economic integration.

- Improve mechanisms and policies to spur business development; especially policies for developing small and medium-sized enterprises and encouraging business startup and innovations. Enhance State management over M&A activities in the direction of promoting internal strengths and ensuring the independence and self-reliance of the economy in accordance with international commitments.

- Enhance the effectiveness of the National Steering Committee for International Integration and inter-sector steering committees for international economic integration and international integration in politics-defense-security, culture-society, education, science-technology, and other areas with a view to creating aggregate strengths in international economic integration.

2.3- Improve competitiveness

- Seriously grasp and organize the implementation of the Resolution passed at the 4^th plenary session of the 12^th Party Central Committee on some major orientations and policies to continue transforming growth model, improving growth quality and productivity and economic competitiveness. Give priority to innovating and improving effectiveness and efficiency of the State apparatus. Continue stabilizing and consolidating macro-economic backgrounds; effectively controlling inflation; ensuring major balances of the economy, and maintaining economic security.

- Continue implementing the three strategic breakthroughs; improving socialist-oriented market economy institutions and business environment; developing synchronous and modern socio-economic infrastructure; developing the workforce that meet requirements of national development and integration. Priority will be given to science and technology development and transfer, especially modern ones, considering it as an essential factor to increase productivity, quality and competitiveness of the economy.

- Accelerate overall restructuring of economic sectors and fields at national, regional, local, and corporate levels with a long-term vision and specific roadmap; closely combine overall economic restructuring with the restructuring of key sectors and areas in the context of joining new-generation free trade agreements. Focus on restructuring investment, especially public investment; State-owned enterprises; financial market, especially credit organizations; innovate and reform public non-business domain; restructure agriculture, industries and services, etc. Simultaneously, reform linkages and coordination in region-level economic development; effectively innovate urban development.

- Establish and deploy policies to support and accelerate the development of private economic sector in terms of both quantity and quality in almost all economic sectors and industries to make it an important driving force for economic development and a core force in international economic integration.

- Synchronously implement mechanisms, policies and measures for human resource development. Focus on basically and comprehensively innovating education and training; beef up popularization of foreign languages, especially English, at all educational levels. Foster vocational training and combine training with corporate labor demand; enhance science and technology application in production and business.

- Regularly supervise and enhance forecasting work on exports, foreign investment, productivity, manpower export, identify the structure of each economic sector and the whole economy to provide backgrounds for evaluating the effectiveness of international economic integration and for timely policy interventions.

2.4- Give priority to agricultural development in combination with building new-style rural areas

- Speed up restructuring of agriculture in association with building new-style rural areas, economic development and improvement of living standards in rural areas. Actively issue and deploy policies on agriculture and rural areas, especially policies on land concentration combined with restructuring rural labor in order to remedy shortcomings of scattered, poorly-connected and small-sized production, address low level of science and technology and rural backward infrastructure.

- Focus on developing agriculture sector with clean and environmental-friendly products, organic products, with high productivity, quality, and exportability. Effectively deploy policies on agriculture, farmers and rural areas and model “four linkages” [State, scientist, business, and farmer]. Encourage sustainable development of collective economics with new-style co-operatives as the core; facilitate the development of household economics to contribute to the formation of value chain from production to processing, consumption and export.

- Modernize and commercialize agriculture, make a remarkable shift to intensive and large-scale production based on scientific and technological advances for high productivity, quality, competitiveness and added value. Shift from food processing to diverse agricultural production based on advantages of each region.

- Expeditiously formulate overall planning for the development of key goods. At the same time, design solutions to assist industries and products hugely and directly affected by new-generation free trade agreements.

- Take advantage of the transition time of the international commitments to focus on developing proper mechanisms and policies in order to create fresh impetus for land concentration and for luring business investment in agriculture and rural development; organize large-scale agricultural production that ensure quality and combination of processing, distribution and exports. Pursue sustainable agriculture development while adapting to climate change.

2.5- Enhance national defense and security

- Enhance potential of national defense and security, consolidate the whole-people defense and security postures, especially people’s heart and mind posture. Effectively combine tasks of national defense and security with economic development and international economic integration.

- Improve the awareness of the importance and inevitability of international economic integration while strengthening education and improvement of the awareness for the whole Party, people and army about the plots and activities of hostile forces during the process of international economic integration.

- Actively and vigilantly fight against plots and conspiracies making corrupt use of international economic integration to encroach upon national sovereignty and security and impose political will on our country.

- Speed up prevention and control of crime, resolutely crack down on transnational crime, high-tech crime, economic crime, terrorism, etc. Take comprehensive measures to ensure security, social order and safety. Build a disciplined and safe society. Enhance the effectiveness of law enforcement forces and avoid passiveness and unexpected situations.

- Well combine defense and security with socio-economic development; all economic projects within defense areas must meet requirements of national defense and security and be double-purpose, particularly in key and strategic areas. Monitor and keep close watch on the situation and paralyze all plots making corrupt use of integration to cause socio-political instability.

- Develop plan and roadmap for restructuring and rearranging enterprises of the armed forces. Facilitate their participation in international economic integration.

- Speed up international defense and security cooperation, take advantage of the support of the international community to maintain a peaceful and stable environment, increase national defense and security potential. Actively participate in joint defense and security activities at regional and international levels in accordance with Viet Nam’s interests and capacity.

2.6- Improve and promote prestige and position

- Accelerate and actively deepen relations with partners, especially those of strategic importance to national development and security; actively participate in the building of the ASEAN Community, drive the set partnership frameworks in a practical manner, and create the intertwinement of interests between Viet Nam and partners, especially big and important partners.

- Create and improve trust as well as the effectiveness of cooperation mechanisms between Viet Nam and partners, first of all the mechanisms with neighboring and big countries. Accelerate trust building measures, make policies transparent, seriously and consistently implement international commitments. Increase quantity and effectiveness of cooperation mechanisms between Viet Nam and partners.

- Beef up and heighten the level of multi-lateral diplomacy; actively participate in multi-lateral institutions to contribute to the shaping of regional and international architectures; actively join issues that are vital to national security and development.

- Promote the international position to accomplish the task of ensuring national interests to the fullest level in implementing new-generation free trade agreements. Promote prestige and position to create favorable environment for development while firmly maintaining independence and sovereignty in the international integration process; firmly maintain unity and territorial integrity, political stability and resolutely and consistently fight against plots and conspiracies of hostile forces.

- Improve effectiveness of coordination among State diplomacy, Party diplomacy and people-to-people diplomacy in the process of international integration to promote the role and specific strengths of each diplomacy channel.

2.7- Protect and promote national cultural values

- Enhance Party leadership, improve the efficiency of State management over culture in the face of developing socialist-oriented market economy and increasingly intensive and extensive international integration, especially the era of breakthrough advancements of information and communication technology.

- Maintain and ceaselessly promote fine cultural traditions of Viet Nam. Harmonize economic and cultural development, combine cultural industry development with the development and improvement of cultural product market. Develop culture in economic activities; effectively exploit economic benefits in culture, improve culture values in specialized products of each locality.

- Foster bilateral and multilateral cooperation in culture. Integrate international integration activities in developing and implementing the strategy for cultural preservation, promotion and popularization. Actively improve effectiveness of management over cultural products, Resolutely prevent intrusion of unhealthy cultural products, especially from the Internet.

- Localities actively coordinate with relevant ministries and agencies to organize cultural programs in their localities or abroad to introduce and popularize specific cultural features while expanding cooperation with foreign localities.

2.8- Handle social issues well

- Amend, supplement and improve legal system on social security, create full and proper legal framework on social insurance, unemployment insurance, labor safety insurance, social welfare, etc; develop and deploy cooperation programs on social insurance. Improve legal framework regulating social relations, especially labor relations and issues emerging from the process of implementing new-generation free trade agreements.

- Effectively realize sustainable poverty reduction targets based on inclusive approach; narrow development and rich-poor gaps between urban and rural areas, between regions, between ethnic minorities, and social equality. Actively develop and implement policies to assist vulnerable groups during the process of implementing new-generation free trade agreements.

- Ensure modest living standards for laborers and their families, basic social services for citizens like education, healthcare, housing, clean water, information, especially in rural, mountainous, border and island areas.

2.9- Well handle environmental issues

- Enhance State management, improve mechanisms and polices and take comprehensive measures to strengthen the management and protection of natural resources and environmental protection, cope with climate change. Resolutely ensure environmental protection at investment projects. Implement standards and norms for emission based on proper roadmap and international commitments.

- Vigorously take measures to improve the quality of environment and living conditions of people. Strictly control sources of environmental pollution. Reduce and gradually stop environmental pollution at handicraft villages, river basins, industrial parks, urban and coastal areas. Focus on comprehensively addressing establishments that cause serious environmental pollution, especially large-scaled foreign direct investment projects. Expeditiously deploy roadmap for controlling gas emission from transport vehicles, particularly in big urban areas.

- Expeditiously develop, improve and strictly implement regulations on social responsibilities of businesses. Accelerate socialization of environmental hygiene and protection. Each citizen protects and supervises environmental protection for timely detection, prevention, and reporting of acts that violate environmental regulations or damage the environment.

- Exploitation and use of natural resources must be attached to environmental protection. Speed up investigation and evaluation of the potential and reserves of mineral resources, improve planning and strengthen management, supervision and use of natural resources effectively. Exploit and use water sources sustainably; actively launch international cooperation in transnational water resource protection, management and use, especially the Mekong water resources. Enhance the protection and development of forests, especially coastal preventive forests, special use forests, natural and biodiversity protection.

2.10- Renew organization and operation of labor unions and effectively manage organizations of laborers at businesses.

- Renew the Party leadership over socio-political organizations, especially labor unions during the process of international integration. Renew organization and operation of the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labor to meet requirements of the new period; allocate enough funding for ensuring the effectiveness of protecting the legitimate rights and benefits of laborers, attract laborers and their organizations at businesses to participate in the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labor. Promote the role of the Viet Nam Fatherland Front and socio-political organizations; the role of the Viet Nam Chamber of Commerce and Industry and organizations representing the business community. Ensure the Party leadership over laborers’ organizations that are not part of the Viet Nam General Confederation of Labor through promoting the aggregate strength of the whole political system from central to local levels.

- Issue new or amend legal documents stipulating the assignment of State management responsibilities in order to renew and enhance management of laborers’ organizations at businesses to protect legitimate rights and interests of laborers and ensure smooth and stable operation of businesses.

- Ensure the establishment and operation of laborers’ organizations at businesses in accordance with the process of improving the legal system, consolidating management tools and measures in order to create favorable conditions for these organizations to operate conveniently and healthily in line with Viet Nam’s law and rules of the International Labor Organization while maintaining socio-political stability.

IV- ORGANIZATION OF IMPLEMENTATION