Lao Dong Newspaper respectfully publishes the full text of the speech of General Secretary and President To Lam at the Meeting (Title set by Lao Dong Newspaper).
Dear comrades in the Central Steering Committee for Vietnamese Cultural Development
Dear comrades attending the meeting.
Over half a year of implementing Resolution No. 80, we have completed a large volume of work, contributing to promoting social stability and development. A leadership and direction mechanism from the Central to local levels has been established; 100% of ministries, branches, and localities have organized to study and thoroughly grasp the Resolution; 34/34 provinces and cities have issued action programs. Many important documents have been issued, creating a political, legal and organizational basis for implementing the Resolution, such as: Resolution No. 28/2026 of the National Assembly; Government implementation plan; Plan to synchronously implement national value systems, cultural value systems, family value systems and Vietnamese human standards in the new era and Government Decree on digital cultural infrastructure. Some localities have proactively built creative spaces, digitized heritage, developed cultural products and mobilized businesses and communities to participate.
However, the results of the first six months of implementing the Resolution show that the gap from policy to product, from program to practical impact is still large. While 100% of localities have completed the action program, the block of Ministries, Sectors and Central Agencies has only 16/22 agencies completed, reaching 72.7%. Budget expenditure for culture is currently only about 1.5% of total state budget expenditure, while the Resolution requires a minimum of 2%.
In addition to the above limitations, practice is also revealing "four major gaps" that need to be fully identified and soon overcome.
The first gap is the attractiveness and spreading capacity of positive cultural values in a digital environment that has not kept up with the development speed of digital platforms and content. As the digital space increasingly shapes perceptions, tastes and social lifestyles, this gap poses challenges to the ability to transform national cultural capital into soft power and the power to lead values. If not overcome soon, exogenous values will increasingly prevail, reducing the attractiveness of national culture and posing new challenges to preserving identity, strengthening belief and inheriting Vietnamese value systems.
The second gap is the capacity to transform cultural heritage into data resources, digital knowledge, intellectual property and national creativity. Vietnam owns more than 40,000 historical and cultural relics, scenic spots; nearly 70,000 intangible cultural heritages, of which 38 are listed by UNESCO. However, most of that heritage treasure has not been digitized, standardized and connected into shared data; has not been effectively protected and exploited in the form of intellectual property; has not become digital knowledge, creative products and resources for education, cultural industry and artificial intelligence. This is the gap that needs to be filled to turn cultural capital into soft power and a new driving force for the country's development.
The third gap is the creative capacity of cultural products with limited national competitiveness. We have a rich cultural treasure, but have not created many literary, film, musical, artistic, design, game, digital content works that can become Vietnamese cultural symbols in the region and in the world. The gap between large cultural capital and creative capacity, production and commercialization of cultural products is still significant. This is a bottleneck that needs to be removed to turn culture from potential resources into the actual competitiveness of the nation.
The fourth gap is the institution and ecosystem of cultural industry development. The Resolution sets a target for cultural industries to contribute 7% of GDP by 2030 and 9% by 2045, while the current proportion is only about 4% of GDP. That gap shows that we still lack a synchronous ecosystem in terms of institutions, markets, data, human resources and a mechanism to mobilize resources to transform cultural creativity into a new production force and a driving force for national growth.
Comrades,
The guiding viewpoints, goals, visions and aspirations for development have been clearly established in Resolution No. 80. In that spirit, I propose to thoroughly grasp "three major shifts", suitable for the socialist culture of Vietnam in the new period.
First, shifting from thinking of culture as a development field to establishing culture as the spiritual foundation of society, the pillar of development, a new growth engine, present in all policies on economy, politics, education, science, technology, defense, security, foreign affairs and national governance.
Second, shifting from traditional cultural space to cultural development in both real and digital spaces. Building autonomy in data, foundations and content of Vietnamese culture, considering this an important part of national sovereignty in the digital age, while selectively absorbing the cultural quintessence of humanity to enrich national identity.
Third, shifting from a mainly conservative mindset to a close combination of conservation and creativity, so that culture not only preserves traditional values but also creates new knowledge, intellectual property, products, markets and national soft power.
Based on that awareness, I request that in the last 6 months of the year, the Steering Committee focus on implementing 04 key tasks to create a foundation for cultural development in the following years.
First, continue to improve institutions, create breakthroughs to liberate the creativity of the whole society, mobilize, allocate and use all resources effectively for cultural development.
The Government Party Committee directs the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to preside over and coordinate with relevant ministries and sectors to focus on building and synchronously completing the legal system, mechanisms, and policies on culture, ensuring that culture develops commensurate with its position and role as the spiritual foundation of society, internal resources and an important driving force for national development. Promptly complete laws and mechanisms and policies that are fundamental, creating a favorable legal corridor for creative activities, production, dissemination, and enjoyment of cultural values; in which the focus is on building the Copyright Law, the Art Activities Law, the Law on Cultural Industry, researching and proposing the development of the Law on Literature, effectively implementing the Decree on digital cultural infrastructure and continuing to complete guiding documents for implementation, creating a transparent legal environment, promoting the development of the cultural market and cultural industries.
At the same time, improve the management mechanism for cultural development in a modern direction, taking data, standards and practical results as a basis for evaluation and administration; build, promulgate and organize the operation of the National Cultural Index, the Statistical Index on the contribution of the cultural industry to economic development, together with the Index to monitor and evaluate the implementation of Resolution No. 80 of the Politburo on cultural development in Vietnam. Promote digital transformation, develop digital cultural infrastructure, improve the mechanism for sharing and exploiting cultural resources in the digital environment, creating a foundation for innovation and expanding the space for cultural development.
Along with that, review, update, and complete cultural development strategies, plans, and programs in accordance with the requirements of the new stage, focusing on the Strategy for Cultural Development of Vietnam to 2035, vision to 2045, ensuring unity between cultural development goals and socio-economic development. Thereby, gradually shifting strongly from cultural management thinking to development-creating thinking; promoting the creative role of the people, encouraging the participation of businesses, social organizations and communities; mobilizing maximum resources inside and outside the state to build an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity, competitive and spreading in the new era.
Second, promote the building of cultural sovereignty in the digital space to enhance the attractiveness and spreading capacity and protect Vietnamese cultural values.
In the digital environment, competition between cultural flows is increasingly strong. Cultural intersection and assimilation are inevitable trends, creating conditions for Vietnam to absorb the quintessence of human culture, but at the same time also posing an urgent requirement to improve the autonomy capacity, orientation capacity and resistance of national culture.
Reality shows that cultural products with technological advantages, platforms and global distribution capabilities are having a profound impact on awareness, tastes, and lifestyles, especially for the younger generation. Meanwhile, many Vietnamese cultural values have not been expressed commensurately in the digital space; a part of the population, especially the younger generation, tends to access, remember and understand more about foreign cultures than the cultural values of the nation itself.
I request the Government Party Committee to determine that building cultural sovereignty in the digital space is an extremely important content in building an advanced Vietnamese culture imbued with national identity. Digital space is not only a place to bring cultural values to a new environment, but must become a space for Vietnamese culture to be present, recognized, loved, spread and have the ability to participate in orienting social values.
The Central Propaganda and Mass Mobilization Commission presides over and coordinates with relevant agencies to advise on orienting propaganda and education work, raising social awareness about Vietnamese cultural values; innovate communication methods, especially on digital platforms, to bring national value systems, cultural value systems, family value systems and Vietnamese human standards closer to the people, especially the younger generation.
The Government Party Committee directs the development and implementation of the National Digital Cultural Space Development Program; perfecting mechanisms and policies to develop platforms, media channels and digital cultural content ecosystems with Vietnamese identity. There must be a mechanism to mobilize the participation of the State, businesses, social organizations and creative communities in the production and dissemination of quality, attractive and competitive cultural products in the digital environment.
Cinema, literature, music, performing arts, fine arts, design, publishing, electronic games, animation and digital content products are not only cultural activities, but also important means to tell Vietnamese stories to the world. Therefore, there needs to be a mechanism for developing, ordering, and investing with focus on cultural works and products with high artistic quality, with the ability to reach a large public, educational value, and international competitiveness and spread.
The Central Steering Committee needs to periodically inspect and evaluate the implementation results; not only evaluating by the number of cultural products put into the digital environment, but also measuring by the level of recognition, attractiveness, spreading ability of Vietnamese cultural values and the changes in awareness, feelings, and cultural behavior of people, especially the younger generation.
Striving to 2030, Vietnam will build a healthy digital cultural environment, in which Vietnamese cultural values have a commensurate position, attractiveness, competitiveness and strong spreading ability; Vietnamese people, especially the younger generation, understand more deeply about the history and culture of the nation, and at the same time have the ability to selectively receive the quintessence of human culture, contributing to consolidating the spiritual foundation of society and enhancing the soft power of the nation.
Third, promote the transformation of heritage and cultural capital into knowledge, intellectual property, creative products and resources for education, science, technology, cultural industry and innovation.
The resolution sets a goal to strive to complete the digitization of 100% of cultural heritages that have been ranked at national level, special national level by 2026. This is a very large workload and the time is still very short. However, do not run after proportions to digitize form. A heritage cannot be considered digitized just because it has been photographed, scanned documents or posted on an information page.
Data must have identification, origin, technical standards, search, connection, sharing and reuse capabilities. Heritage data must serve management, education, research, tourism, cultural industry and artificial intelligence development; if it is only located in closed data warehouses, it does not create new value.
First of all, it is necessary to focus on the foundational data groups: Vietnamese, history, relics, intangible heritage, museum artifacts, libraries, literature, traditional arts and documentary heritage. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is responsible for content, accuracy and copyright; The Ministry of Science and Technology is responsible for technical architecture, connection standards and data exploitation capabilities in new technologies.
More importantly, digitization must form digital knowledge and national intellectual property. Each data set, each digitized heritage needs to be managed as a type of asset capable of creating scientific value, cultural value and economic value. Urgently complete the mechanism for establishing, protecting, managing and exploiting intellectual property rights for digitized cultural assets; build a mechanism for harmonious benefit sharing between the State, community, artisans, authors, researchers and businesses in the process of exploiting cultural values. Strongly encourage the transformation of Vietnamese cultural materials into creative products in cinema, music, publishing, fine arts, design, electronic games, tourism, education, media and other cultural industries, so that heritage continues to be created, spread and create new values in contemporary life.
I request the Central Steering Committee to regularly inspect and urge the implementation of this task; not only assessing by the rate of digitalization, but also assessing by the ability to create digital knowledge, form intellectual property, develop creative products and the substantial contribution of cultural resources to education, science, technology, cultural industry and economic growth.
Fourth, develop the cultural industry into a new growth engine, turning cultural strength into national competitiveness.
I propose that in the next thematic meeting of the Steering Committee for Cultural Development contributing to double-digit growth, it is necessary to clearly identify which sectors have the potential to create growth; which localities can form leading centers; which businesses have capacity; which projects can create products, revenue, jobs, intellectual property and markets.
On that basis, the Government urgently completes and puts into operation the national statistical system on cultural industry; in 2026, it is necessary to form original data, unified calculation methods and periodic publication mechanisms. It is necessary to measure the contribution of each industry, each locality; domestic and export revenue; number of enterprises, jobs, income; copyright value, intellectual property and the level of participation of Vietnamese enterprises in the value chain.
Each key locality only selects a few fields and no more than three leading projects. Each project must clarify the product, implemented enterprise, capital source, market, intellectual property and expected contribution to GRDP, employment, export or tourism attraction. By October 2026, localities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hai Phong, Hue, Da Nang, Can Tho must identify land funds for cultural industrial parks, cultural innovation centers and digital content creation. Localities must not build similar models; each center must have different functions, associated with advantages, markets, investors and regional linkage capabilities.
Comrades,
Uncle Ho advised: "Culture must guide the nation." After nearly a century, that thought still retains its value. But in the new context, culture not only guides each person, but also orients the development path of the entire nation. More than a thousand years of Northern domination is more than a thousand years facing the risk of cultural assimilation. But the Vietnamese nation still retains its language, writing, customs, beliefs, morality and will to be independent. It is the lasting vitality of culture that has preserved the vitality of the nation.
If in the past we had to protect culture from the risk of assimilation by coercive force, today the challenge comes from the competition for the attractiveness of cultural values in the digital environment. Data, algorithms and artificial intelligence are increasingly participating in shaping perceptions, tastes, lifestyles and social value systems. This poses the task of cultural preservation in the digital age not only of preserving heritage, but also of making heritage continue to live in contemporary life, not only digitizing for preservation, but also digitizing for education, creativity, spreading and becoming a resource for development, for the cultural industry and for artificial intelligence of Vietnam.
I propose that comrades continue to uphold the spirit of responsibility, urgently concretize the assigned tasks, create strong changes in the organization of the implementation of Resolution 80, and make culture truly become a spiritual foundation, an internal resource and an important driving force for national development in the new era.
Sincerely thank you comrades!
