Lao Dong Newspaper respectfully publishes the full text of the speech of General Secretary and President To Lam at the conference (title set by Lao Dong Newspaper).
Dear Comrades Members of the Politburo, Members of the Secretariat, Members of the Party Central Committee,
Dear comrades delegates attending the Conference,
Today, the 14th Central Committee of the Party opened the 3rd Conference to consider and decide on important issues to implement the Resolution of the 14th Party Congress, contents on building the Party, the political system and developing the country in the new period. On behalf of the Politburo and the Secretariat, I warmly welcome comrades to attend the Conference.
Comrades,
The 3rd Central Committee Conference takes place in a context where the world and region are changing rapidly, widely, and complexly, making it difficult to predict. Strategic competition, geopolitical conflicts, global economic differentiation and shifts in technology, energy, and data are reshaping the development environment. Climate change, non-traditional security, and artificial intelligence both open up opportunities and create new risks, requiring us to improve strategic autonomy, resilience, adaptability, and national action capacity.
Domestically, the entire Party, people, and army are urgently bringing the Resolution of the 14th Party Congress into life. In the first 6 months of 2026, GDP increased by 8.18%, although not reaching the set target, but the highest in the same period of the past 16 years; macroeconomics are basically stable, major balances are ensured; national defense and security are maintained; foreign affairs, international integration, culture, and society continue to develop; social security is guaranteed. The results are commendable, but we still have to continue to overcome limitations, remove bottlenecks in institutions, growth quality, autonomy capacity, mobilizing resources and organizing implementation.
The 14th Congress has identified guidelines, goals and major strategic orientations; the 2nd Central Committee Conference laid the organizational foundation and operating rules for the term. The 3rd Central Committee Conference must turn those orientations into policies to remove bottlenecks, unlock resources and create new development capacity. The 13 contents discussed at the Conference belong to many fields but all aim for higher goals: building leadership, ruling, management, action, development and protection of the country in the new period. Therefore, the policies approved by the Central Committee must create 4 strategic shifts: First: improving the leadership, ruling capacity and quality of operation of the Party and the State apparatus; Second: unified management of development space, promoting the effectiveness of national resources; Third: establishing a development model based on productivity, knowledge, technology and people; Fourth: proactively preventing, improving resilience, adaptability and firmly protecting the country. These are the goals that the Conference must achieve.
Request the Central Government to focus on answering the question: which bottlenecks each policy removes? What new capacity is created? And what conditions are needed to implement and effectively implement? In that spirit, I would like to suggest 4 key points for you to discuss.
I. The shift from organizational arrangement to improving the leadership capacity, ruling and operational quality of the Party and the political system.
Arranging the organizational structure has created a more streamlined structure. But streamlining is the condition; the goal is that the Party leads more effectively, the State manages better, the apparatus operates faster, the people are served better, and the people's real living standard is improved. This shift must ensure strict discipline, clear organization, controlled power, and enforced responsibility; taking the quality of policy decisions, implementation efficiency, and people's trust as a measure.
Regulations on what party members are not allowed to do must clearly define the limits of discipline, correctly identify new manifestations in the market economy, digital transformation and power-interest relationship. Strict discipline must go hand in hand with protecting honest cadres, who dare to think, dare to do, dare to take responsibility for the common good. The amendment and supplementation of Regulation No. 20 must clarify the name, functions, tasks, authority, responsibility and working relationships of all types of Party organizations, overcome overlaps, gaps in responsibility, the situation of "grassroots in grassroots", and ensure unified and smooth operation.
The preliminary report on 1 year of operation of the overall organizational model of the political system and the 2-level local government model and the Report on Party building and the political system in the first 6 months of the year and directions and tasks for the last 6 months of 2026 must help the Central Government assess the actual quality of operation of the political system after restructuring: is the apparatus smooth, are there clear authority and responsibility, are decisions quick and correct, are people and businesses served better? The measure is not only the reduced number of focal points but also the effectiveness of leadership, management and quality of service to the People. Decentralization must go hand in hand with authority, resources, human resources, data, tools for implementation and control of power; provincial level is strong in planning and coordination; commune level is close to the people, capable of solving work in the new model. Officials must be evaluated by qualities, capacity, products, progress, and prestige; the head is the center of responsibility.
II. The transition from scattered management to unified governance of development space and national resources
Administrative space cannot limit development thinking. Land, sea, urban areas, infrastructure, resources, and data must be viewed in a whole, organized according to national strategy, regional advantages, and overall efficiency. This shift must create a new development space, bring resources to effective use, harmonize interests between the State, people, and businesses, and connect local advantages into national strength.
Projects to establish Quang Ninh city and Bac Ninh city directly under the Central Government must be considered in the context of the requirement to form new growth poles, improve urban governance capacity and strengthen regional linkages. Changing administrative status must create substantive changes in governance capacity, resource mobilization efficiency and development spillover effect. It is necessary to carefully assess infrastructure conditions, resources, operating costs and impacts on the People, ensuring that each project creates new development value for the locality, region and the whole country.
The content of preliminary review of the implementation of Resolution No. 18, dated June 16, 2022 of the 13th Central Committee; determining the viewpoint of amending the Land Law and related laws, along with the content of summarizing the implementation of Resolution No. 36, dated October 22, 2018 of the 12th Central Committee and promulgating the Central Committee's Resolution on building and developing Vietnam into a strong maritime nation must be considered in unified territorial governance thinking. The Central Committee needs to clarify the requirement to shift land management from each land plot to spatial governance; from heavily focused on procedures to clearing and creating resources; from asset compensation to rebuilding life, ensuring housing, livelihoods and equivalent or better living conditions. The sea is a space for survival, development and protection of sovereignty; it must be managed comprehensively, connected to land, seaports, logistics and economic corridors and international cooperation. Streamlining resources must go hand in hand with protecting legitimate rights and interests; decentralization must be linked to controlling speculation, wastefulness, and group interests; data must be unified and interconnected.
III. The shift from growth based heavily on input expansion to development based on productivity, knowledge, technology and people
The report on the socio-economic situation in the first 6 months of the year, key tasks and solutions for the last 6 months of 2026 and the Project on innovation of Vietnam's development model must be placed in one vein: the report answers what needs to be done immediately in the last 6 months of the year; the project needs to answer the question: how does the country create wealth and competitiveness in the long term. GDP in the first 6 months of the year increased by 8.18% is a positive result, but the goal of increasing by at least 10% for the whole year is a very challenging task. It is necessary to strive to achieve the 2026 target, and at the same time create a foundation for sustainable double-digit growth; ensure macroeconomic stability, major balances, unlock investment, handle backlog projects, consolidate business capacity, ensure jobs and income. The scenario must be quantified to each industry and locality, must take into account favorable and unfavorable factors, associated with the responsibility of the head; the core stage is implementation organization.
In the long term, it is necessary to shift from dependence on capital, resources, processing, and cheap labor to relying on productivity, knowledge, data, technology, innovation, high-quality human resources, and modern management; build an independent, self-reliant, and efficiently integrated economy. It is necessary to promote the management and construction role of the State and the role of the market in mobilizing and allocating resources; ensure that the state economy truly plays a leading role, and the private economy is the most important driving force of the national economy; link foreign investment with technology transfer, improving endogenous capacity. Science, technology, innovation, digital transformation and artificial intelligence must truly transform into productivity, quality, added value and competitiveness.
The project to build a disciplined, safe, civilized, harmonious, and developed society is the foundation and goal of the development model. Development must make the scale of the economy larger, society better, people develop more comprehensively, and the community is more cohesive and trust is strengthened. Do not let material wealth increase but poverty go to culture, morality, and humanity; do not let growth increase inequality or push the weak out on the sidelines. People must be at the center, culture as the foundation, law and discipline as the pillars; combine rule of law with virtue, rights and responsibility. The ultimate measure is the quality of life, development opportunities, and happiness of the people.
IV. The transition from handling each risk to proactively preventing, improving resilience and firmly protecting the country
In a world of intertwined risks and chain reactions, security cannot only be ensured in each field; the environment cannot only be handled after damage occurs. This shift requires a shift from response to forecasting, from handling incidents to proactive prevention; ensuring security, safety and continuous operation of the political, economic, social, technological and essential infrastructure systems. Security is a condition for development; sustainable, inclusive, and resilient development is the foundation of security.
The National Security Strategy and the content summarizing the implementation of Resolution No. 24, dated June 3, 2013 of the 11th Central Committee, promulgating the Central Committee's Conclusion on environmental protection, proactively responding to climate change in the new period must be placed in a unified mindset between protecting and developing the country; strongly shifting from responding and overcoming consequences to proactively identifying, forecasting and preventing early and remotely; improving national resilience to traditional and non-traditional risks and chain reactions. It is necessary to firmly protect the Party, State, People, regime, independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity; and at the same time ensure human security, data security, critical infrastructure safety and consolidate social trust. It is necessary to closely combine national defense and security with foreign affairs and international integration, promote comprehensive strength to protect the Fatherland early and remotely, maintain a peaceful and stable environment, expand development space and enhance Vietnam's position and prestige in the region and in the world.
Environmental and climate policies must shift from overcoming consequences to prevention, adaptation, and recovery; from management according to boundaries to management according to ecosystems, river basins, and sea areas; turning green transformation into a driving force for technological innovation and improving competitiveness. The Central Government needs to clearly identify core benefits that must be protected, and risks that must be prevented early and remotely; command, coordination and early warning mechanisms. Large projects must fully calculate load capacity, environmental costs, data security and intergenerational responsibilities.
Comrades,
The four strategic transition steps mentioned above form an entity: organization and people create action capacity; space and institutions unlock resources; development model transforms resources into productivity, wealth and quality of life; capacity to prevent and protect to keep that process safe, continuous, and sustainable. Any slow step will limit the remaining steps. The results of the Conference must be shown in high consensus on awareness, the correctness of policies and practical changes after the Conference.
Implementing Regulation No. 206, dated June 30, 2026 of the Politburo on organizing the Conference of the Party Central Committee, documents have been carefully prepared. The Conference time is not long, the workload is large, and there are many important issues. Therefore, it is requested that Central Committee members focus on in-depth discussions in groups, clearly express their views in the hall, directly contribute opinions to the Draft Resolution, Program, and Action Plan; speeches should be concise, go straight to the issue, clearly state their opinions, clearly argue, clearly propose, clearly make choices; directly contribute to perfecting the Central Government's policies. All choices must put national and ethnic interests, the legitimate and lawful rights and interests of the people; the long-term effectiveness of the country above all else.
After this Conference, each Resolution and Conclusion must be immediately concretized into a Program and Action Plan, ensuring clear goals, clear tasks, clear authority, clear resources, clear responsibilities, clear deadlines, clear products, clear results; resolutely overcome the situation where policies are correct but institutionalization is slow, implementation is not strict, and efficiency is not high.
With the spirit of solidarity, democracy, discipline, breakthrough and development, on behalf of the Politburo and the Secretariat, I declare the opening of the 3rd Conference of the 14th Party Central Committee.
Wishing our Conference a great success
