Laws of Vietnam

THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OF THE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Pursuant to Article 84 of the 1992 Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, which was amended and supplemented by Resolution No. 51/2001/QH10 of December 25, 2001 of the Xth National Assembly, the 10th session;

On the basis of considering the report of the Government, reports of the National Assembly's agencies, the concerned bodies and opinions of National Assembly deputies,

RESOLVES:

The National Assembly agrees to the assessment of the situation of implementing the 2003 tasks, the 2004 orientations and tasks with the objectives, targets and solutions mentioned in the report of the Government and reports of the concerned bodies; and at the same time lays stress on some following issues:

I. ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE 2003 PLAN

In spite of numerous difficulties and challenges in 2003, Vietnam's economy has seen a fairly high growth rate. Almost all major socio-economic development targets have been attained or surpassed. Industrial production and export have risen fairly high. Resources have been better mobilized for development investment, thus contributing to boosting the economic restructuring along the direction of industrialization and modernization. The State budget revenue has topped the estimate. The socio-economic infrastructures have continued to be improved. Steps of development have been seen in the cultural and social domains. The work of public health and care for people's health has seen progress. The work of hunger elimination and poverty reduction has been crowned with encouraging achievements. The people's living conditions have been further improved. The stable socio-political situation has been maintained as have national defense, security, social order and safety. The external relations continue to expand, Vietnam's position and prestige on the international arena have been constantly heightened.

The above results are attributed to the great efforts made by the entire Party, entire people and entire army; to the close administration by the Government; the efforts and dynamism of localities, branches and levels; the effective supervision by the people-elected agencies; and to the support and assistance of our compatriots overseas as well as international friends.

However, the economy still sees many problems and weaknesses. Its growth quality and competitiveness are not so high, the industrialization and modernization speed remains slow. The investment, production and business environment still sees mishaps. The use efficiency of State investment capital and the entire society's investment capital remains low. The work of capital construction management still sees many shortcomings and weaknesses as well as great losses which have been slowly redressed. The work of planning and management of planning is not so good. The economic restructuring fails to keep pace with the requirements of development and international integration. The service development fails to match the potentials. The State budget revenue sources remain unsteady, the credit activities are not really healthy. The quality of education and training as well as scientific and technological activities remains low. The social situation still sees may burning problems. The life of people in the countryside, deep-lying, remote or ethnic minority and natural disaster-prone regions is still struck with many difficulties. The administrative reform proceeds at a snail's pace, failing to meet the demand of life.

II. MAJOR OBJECTIVES AND TARGETS FOR 2004

1. The overall objectives:

To ensure fast economic development with new steps of improvement in its quality and sustainability, laying foundations for the fulfillment of the objectives and tasks of the five-year (2001-2005) socio-economic development plan. To bring to the fullest play and efficiently use all resources in service of economic restructuring in association with the development of domestic and overseas markets. To create improvements in investment quality and efficiency. To raise the competitiveness and efficiency of the economy. To actively step up the international economic integration according to the committed roadmap. To continue with the hunger elimination, poverty alleviation and improvement of the people's living conditions. To raise the quality of educational, medical, cultural and social activities. To create vigorous improvement in administrative reform, enhancing legislation and social discipline. To effectively check corruption, wastage, bureaucracy in the State apparatus. To maintain the political stability as well as social order and safety. To continue expanding external relations.

2. Major targets:

- The GDP to grow between 7.5% and 8%;

- The agricultural, forestry and fishery production value to rise by 4.6%;

- The industrial production value to rise by 15%;

- The services value to rise by 8%;

- The export turnover to increase by 12%;

- The total investment of the entire society to achieve 36% of the GDP;

- The consumer price index to rise not beyond 5%;

- To create new jobs for 1.5 million persons;

- The number of new recruits for job training to increase by 7%;

- The poor household rate to drop to below 10%;

- The malnourished under-five children rate to reduce to 26%.

- The birth rate to reduce by 0.04%.

III. PRINCIPAL TASKS AND SOLUTIONS

1. To raise the quality and efficiency of economic growth. To restructure the agricultural economy along the direction of concentrated commodity production. To form zones for specialized farming and intensive farming with high productivity and outlets; to attach importance to plant varieties and animal breeds. To diversify rural production and business lines. To concentrate investment on development of communications, irrigation, laying foundations for quick restructuring of the economy, restructuring of products and restructuring of labor in agriculture and rural areas.

To concentrate efforts on development of industries and industrial products of high competitiveness and hi-tech contents. To encourage the renovation of equipment and technologies. To promote the efficiency of the existing industrial parks; to develop industrial clusters for medium- and small-sized enterprises, cottage-industrial and handicraft cooperatives, traditional craft villages.

To strive to reduce irrational expenses in production and business process. To apply synchronous measures to step up the reorganization, renovation and equitization of State enterprises and to raise the efficiency of their operation. To encourage and create conditions for all economic sectors to develop, turning out more products for the society.

To strongly develop services, creating conditions to attract foreign investment in this domain. To make comprehensive investment in the development of diversified tourist activities. To expand and raise the quality of financial, monetary, post and telecommunication service activities. To quickly raise the service proportion in the GDP.

To expand the scale and raise the efficiency of development investment. To strongly adjust the investment structure in association with the economic restructuring, labor restructuring along the direction of attaching importance to efficiency. To further raise the quality of planning and management of investment according to planning. To put an end to the state of scattered investment not according to plannings, plans. The ministries, branches and localities should concentrate the State budget investment capital on key points suitable to their budgets' capability.

To resolutely reduce or abandon works or projects which are deemed unclose to the practical requirements of branches, localities or markets. Not to invest capital in projects and/or works with unclear efficiency. As from 2004, not to arrange central budget capital for payment of debts in unplanned capital construction. To work out plans on handling capital construction debts and strictly handle cases of violation. On the basis of readjustment of investment structure, to scrutinize criteria, techno-economic norms to strive to reduce investment rates.

To effect publicity and transparency in the management and use of investment capital from the State budget. To enhance inspection, examination and strict management against loss, wastage and negative acts in investment activities, particularly in capital construction investment. Organizations and individuals must bear responsibility for their investment decisions.

To ensure the role of people-elected bodies in deciding on projects invested with local budget sources. To enhance the responsibility of local agencies, associations and organizations to participate in and supervise investment projects in the localities, which fall under the competence of ministries, central branches to decide on the investment.

To remove difficulties and obstacles in order to accelerate the construction, completion and commission of important national works.

To continue improving the investment environment in order to attract foreign investment capital, clearing obstacles in procedures and working style of the administrative apparatus, creating equality in service prices and tax policies. To diversify forms of foreign investment in order to create conditions for development of assorted markets.

To perfect mechanisms and policies for attraction and management of ODA capital. To speed up the capital disbursement, arrange in time the reciprocal capital, minimize indirect costs, supply capital in highest percentages for priority works and projects. To review and assess the efficiency of programs and projects financed with borrowed capital and redress in time shortcomings and weaknesses.

To accelerate the process of formation and synchronous development of assorted markets. To enhance trade promotion overseas in order to expand markets and find new ones. To reduce trade deficit, encourage export, particularly the export of processed goods.

To develop and continue to perfect the financial and monetary market. To increase channels of mobilizing medium- and long-term capital. To renew the credit mechanism along the direction of abolishing credit subsidies. To build up an environment for equal credit activities among various economic sectors. To speed up the handling of outstanding debts, working out practical solutions to reduce the rate of bad debts. To expand and develop banking services, ensuring the stability and safety of credit institutions.

2. To re-assess the labor structure so as to work out plans for rational job training. To attach importance to the training of labor with skills suitable to the levels and requirements of industrialization and modernization, meeting the demands of labor export, key economic regions, rural areas, mountainous, deep-lying, remote and/or ethnic minority people areas. To adopt policies to attract trained human resources, particularly the contingent of young intellectuals, to work in rural areas as well as difficulty-hit regions. To well implement the job-training, creating jobs for people with their land use purposes changed in service of industrialization and urban development. To well organize the experimental implementation of the scheme on management of, vocational training and job creation for, persons after they are rehabilitated from drug addiction.

To perfect the detailed scheme on reforms of wage policy, social insurance and preferential allowances for people with meritorious services to the country for implementation in 2004 and subsequent years.

To draw up the national program of action for the elderly people. To invest resources and formulate proper mechanisms for the poor people to have medical examination and treatment. To substantially reform the mechanism of collection of hospital charges, health insurance, raising the percentage of people participating in health insurance. To formulate specific policies and regulations to promote the State's role in managing and regulating the prices of curative medicines in the market mechanism. To formulate a strategy to raise the capacity of curative medicine production in the country and build up the supply system, stabilize prices, redress the state of monopoly in dealing in western medicines.

To raise the service quality of public medical establishments, to encourage the development of non-public medical establishments, meeting the demands to care for people's health. To educate to raise the professional ethics of the contingent of medical workers. To continue striving to reduce the birth rate and raise the population quality. To pay attention to reproductive healthcare for people in deep-lying, remote, mountainous and ethnic minority regions. To apply active measures to ward off social evils, chiefly narcotics and the spread of HIV/AIDS.

3. To renew the managerial mechanism, improve conditions with a view to raising the quality of education, the quality of tertiary, intermediate vocational and job training, satisfying the structure of human resources in service of socio-economic development.

To raise the quality of the contingent of teachers and administrators; the quality of text books, teaching and learning equipment. To ensure enough teachers for study subjects, meeting the requirement of renewing the general education curriculum. To step up the work of examination and inspection, strictly observing the regulations on examination, to prevent and strictly handle negative acts in the work of organizing the teaching and learning, examinations, the granting of diplomas and certificates. To manage the extra teaching and extra learning in order to well attain the educational targets. To adopt policies in order to ensure the universalization of junior-high school education.

To efficiently use the source of education bonds in order to achieve the target of solidifying schools.

To increase investment in the field of culture and information so as to realize more efficiently the tasks of building and developing the Vietnamese culture into an advanced one imbued with national identity. To continue raising the quality of the movement "The entire people unite and build a cultural life." To enhance the State management in the domain of press, publication, cultural heritage, the building of civilized lifestyle in wedding, funerals and festivals.

To step up the socialization of cultural, educational and sport activities and continue efficiently implementing the target programs on culture, education, sports and employment for youth and health protection and care for children. To gradually transform public establishments into autonomous and self-financing ones under the State's regulations, to develop non-public establishments, mobilize and use people's contributions in a rational, public and transparent manner.

4. To renew the managerial mechanism and policies for scientific and technological development. To form and develop the science and technology market. To perfect the system of State management over intellectual property. To create new steps of improvement in linking sciences and technologies with production and business. To diversify sources of investment, well manage and efficiently use financial sources in scientific and technological activities. To encourage enterprises to invest in scientific and technological research and application, attaching importance to high-technologies in order to raise the quality and competitiveness of products and international economic integration. To concentrate efforts on renewing and raising the technological capability of a number of economic, technical and service sectors directly involved in the implementation of the AFTA roadmap commitment.

To speed up the implementation of key State-level programs on sciences and technologies; programs on application and development of information, biological, new materials, and automation technologies; hi-tech parks, software technology centers, key national laboratories. To attach importance to human resource training and scientific-technological programs in service of socio-economic development in the rural and mountainous regions.

To protect forest, marine, aquatic resources, to protect the environment. To enhance measures to minimize environmental pollution in urban centers and industrial zones; to settle the treatment of garbage and hazardous wastes.

5. To continue investing in infrastructures through national programs for mountainous, island, border and ethnic minority regions. To evaluate for certification of communes which have accomplished the objectives of Program 135 and concentrate the direction on the attainment of the targets by the remaining communes in 2005. To determine the criteria of "exceptional difficulty" for application to hamlets, villages in Region I and Region II communes in order to work out investment plans.

To well implement the policies of support for ethnic minority people meeting with many difficulties; to subsidize freights for transportation of such essential goods items as iodized salt, kerosene... to commune centers. To assess and work out a uniform mechanism for efficient management and use of some types of newspapers and magazines supplied to mountainous and ethnic minority regions. To work out plans for training and posting of cadres being locals and adopt policies to attract cadres to work in communes still meeting with many difficulties, border, mountainous and island regions.

6. To enhance measures to firmly maintain the political stability, social order and safety, particularly in key areas. To fruitfully perform the tasks of preventing and fighting fires, storms and floods. To attach importance to the building of defense and security potentials, closely combining socio-economic development with defense and security enhancement.

To ensure equipment, weapons and military gears in timely and efficient services of the requirements of building up the armed forces.

To consolidate and better promote the initial results in re-establishing traffic order and safety through synchronous and strong measures, resolutely repelling traffic accidents as well as traffic congestion.

To raise the responsibility and political stuff of army and police officers and men; to uphold their revolutionary quality and healthy lifestyle, raise their sense of law and discipline observance in order to well fulfill their assigned tasks.

7. To continue implementing the external policies of multilateralization and diversification of external relations for peace, independence and development. To build up and consolidate the legal framework for the develop-ment of friendly and cooperative long-lasting relations with countries, particularly important and traditional partners.

To promote Vietnam's role and position in the international arena. To successfully organize the 5th Asian-European Meeting (ASEM-5) and international conferences hosted by Vietnam in 2004. To step up the work of external relation information.

To create new steps of development in external economy. In 2004, to be more active in international economic integration. To well fulfill the commitments on Asean Free Trade Area (AFTA). To speed up the process of negotiations for early admission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and develop bilateral economic ties.

8. To continue raising the quality of activities of investigation, prosecution, adjudication and judgment execution, to minimize cases of unjust and wrong trials. To severely handle State officials and employees, first of all officials and employees in judicial bodies, who violate procedural legislation, thus causing damage to the interests of the State, the legitimate rights and interests of organizations and/or citizens.

To scrutinize, classify and settle remaining criminal and civil cases; criminal or civil judgments and decisions, which have already come into force but not yet been executed; to remove obstacles in judgment execution, chiefly against subjects already sentenced to imprisonment but still living freely in the society, civil judgments and decisions which have already taken legal effect but cannot be executed.

To deploy in time the National Assembly's resolution on enforcement of the Criminal Procedure Code; in the immediate future, to examine and grasp the situation in order to determine and list the district-level courts qualified for exercising the competence for first-instance trial of criminal cases under the Criminal Procedure Code for submission to the National Assembly Standing Committee for decision.

To increase material and technical foundations as well as funding for the judicial bodies to well perform their functions and tasks according to the requirements of judicial reform.

To step up the work of law dissemination and education to people of all strata.

9. To concentrate on directing authorities at all levels, branches and localities to settle definitively the existing and complicated cases of prolonged complaints. To enhance the work of inspection, ensuring that complaints and denunciations be settled in strict accordance with law.

To strictly handle persons who violate laws, show irresponsibility in settling complaints and denunciations of citizens. To better implement the Regulation on democracy and conciliation at the grassroots. To attach importance to the work of mass agitation in the settlement of complaints and denunciations. To resolutely handle persons who abuse the rights to complaints and denunciations to cause political insecurity, social disorder and unsafety.

10. To create a vigorous improvement in adminis-trative reform. To continue screening and abolishing unnecessary administrative procedures and regulations, to publicize regulations and procedures in order to well implement the "one-door" mechanism at the State administrative agencies when handling citizens' affairs.

To reorganize and consolidate the organizational apparatuses of State bodies in order to avoid overlapping in their functions and tasks. To step up the building of synchronous regimes and policies for commune, ward and township officials.

To work out specific measures to combat corruption, wastage, to practice thrift, focussing particularly on the domains of land, capital construction, State budget expenditure. To strictly observe the regulations on public servants and official duty regimes, to resolutely handle officials and employees who break law. To clearly determine the responsibility of the heads of administrative units, raise the responsibility of the agency leaders in managing their officials and employees.

To direct and organize the election of People's Council deputies at all levels.

IV. ORGANIZATION OF IMPLEMENTATION

The Government, branches and levels should take initiative in directing, administering and organizing the attainment of the 2004 objectives, norms and tasks.

The Standing Committee, the Nationalities Council and Committees of the National Assembly, delegations of National Assembly deputies and the National Assembly deputies strictly supervise the implementation of this Resolution.

The Central Committee of Vietnam Fatherland Front and its member organizations shall mobilize people of all strata to well implement the Resolution of the National Assembly.

The National Assembly calls on the compatriots and combatants throughout the country and Vietnamese compatriots overseas to heighten the spirit of patriotic emulation, to unite with one anther and mobilize all resources, surmounting all difficulties and trials and successfully fulfilling the 2004 tasks.

This Resolution was passed on November 26, 2003 by the XIth National Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam at its fourth session.

National Assembly Chairman
NGUYEN VAN AN