Party Central Committee wraps up sixth session Hanoi - The 12th Party Central Committee wrapped up its sixth session in Hanoi on October 11 after seven working days in a serious, democratic and responsible manner. Illustrative image (Source: VNA)   On behalf of the Politburo, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong summed up key outcomes of the meeting, including socio-economic performance for 2017-2018, protection and improvement of people’s health, population work in the new situation, renewal in the organization of the political system’s apparatus, renovation of public administrative units, and personnel work. The committee agreed that in the first nine months this year, the country has made positive progress in almost areas thanks to efforts of the entire Party, people and the armed forces. The economy grew by 7.46 percent in the third quarter, raising the growth of the three quarters to 6.41 percent. The macro-economy has been stable while inflation was put under control. However, the committee’s members pointed to an array of difficulties and challenges, including high overspending and public debt, big non-performing loans, slow ODA and Government bond capital disbursement, loss-making State-owned enterprises, violations in environmental protection and food hygiene, complicated traffic accidents and crimes, and more.  They underscored the need to make drastic changes in the implementation of three strategic breakthroughs, renovation of growth model in combination with restructuring the economy, raising labour productivity and economic competitiveness in 2018. They called for attention to be paid to cultural development, democracy exercise, social justice, effective response to climate change, environment protection, food hygiene and safety, the fight against corruption and wastefulness towards maintaining an environment of peace, stability and active global integration. In his closing speech, Party chief Trong said priority should be given to fine-tuning mechanisms to further improve the business climate, improve the efficiency of State-owned enterprises, public administrative units, and especially the private sector. The committee affirmed that mechanisms and policies will be tailored to improve health care and services regarding protection and improvement of people’s health, ensuring that every citizen will be equal in their rights and obligations in health insurance coverage and related services. They consented to improve the operation efficiency of State medical establishments by facilitating public-private partnership and build a widespread medical system with streamlined and efficient operations. Party units, authorities, Vietnam Fatherland Front chapters, and socio-political organisations should direct mass movements on physical exercise, improve living conditions, protect the environment, and ensure food hygiene and safety, they said. Speaking highly of important results of population work – family planning over the past years, the committee suggested that population policy should shift from family planning to population and development. The campaign encouraging each married couple to have two children should be further spread to ensure that there are nearly 104 million people nationwide by 2030. The committee emphasised the importance of renewing and rearranging the apparatus of the political system towards a streamlined one with efficient and effective operation, highlighting this as a fundamental and urgent task to build and re-organise the Party, and reform the political system to meet the requirements of developing the socialist-oriented market economy and integrating globally. It is necessary to build a competitive, overt and transparent mechanism in the recruitment, appointment and promotion of officials to attract moral and competent ones to work for organisations of the political system.  Building a mechanism to strictly oversee power by legal regulations, promoting accountability, and severely punishing violators – especially heads of institutions are equally important.  The committee also stressed the need to improve the quality and operational efficiency of public service institutions.   The State must ensure the provision of basic and essential public services and increase the access to public services for people from walks of life.  Apart from re-arranging and reforming structure and operation of public service institutions, it is crucial to promote social investment in public services without comercialisation.  At the sixth plenary session, the committee elected two additional members to the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat and considered the execution of disciplinary measures against Nguyen Xuan Anh, who is a member of the Party Central Committee and Secretary of the Party Committee of the central city of Da Nang.  The Party leader assured that any violations will be strictly dealt with from now on to ensure the Party’s discipline and reinforce people’s trust.  He called on the whole Party, people and army to continue implementing more seriously and effectively the Resolution adopted at the 12th National Party Congress as well as resolutions of the 12th Party Central Committee, including conclusions made at this meeting, to fulfill the set targets for 2017-2018 and the following years. VNA