On the morning of April 16, in Hanoi, the Politburo and the Secretariat held a national conference to disseminate and implement the Resolution of the 11th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee.

General Secretary To Lam attended and gave a speech at the Central Conference.

We respectfully introduce the speech of General Secretary To Lam at the National Conference to disseminate and implement the Resolution of the 11th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee:

“Dear leaders and former leaders of the Party, State, Vietnam Fatherland Front; Central Party Committees and localities,

Dear comrades attending the Conference at national bridges,

Dear comrades and countrymen,

Today, the Politburo and the Secretariat convened a National Conference to promptly disseminate and implement important policies and decisions recently approved by the 11th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee. The Conference was organized in person, combined with online broadcast to the commune level and live broadcast on VTV1 of Vietnam Television and Voice of Vietnam, demonstrating the importance of the contents that need to be disseminated as well as the scale and scope of influence of these contents. These are also the contents that many cadres, party members and people are paying close attention to and hope to soon implement.

Dear comrades,

At the 11th Central Conference of the 13th tenure, the Party Central Committee worked with a very urgent, serious and responsible spirit, discussed democratically, listened and exchanged many new and important issues frankly and reached a high consensus on major and core contents. It can be said that this is a historic conference, deciding on very important and breakthrough issues of the new revolutionary stage, creating a new momentum and new impetus for the cause of comprehensive innovation, bringing the country into a new era of development. On the basis of absolute consensus, the Central Committee issued Resolution No. 60-NQ/TW, dated April 12, 2025 with many particularly important contents, focusing on 2 groups of issues to continue streamlining the organizational apparatus, arranging administrative units, organizing 2-level local governments and preparing for the 14th National Party Congress. These contents are closely related to each other and are all key, urgent issues that we must focus on implementing immediately after this Conference until the end of 2025.

The comrades listened to Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, National Assembly Chairman Tran Thanh Man and Head of the Central Organizing Committee Le Minh Hung directly disseminate 3 topics, which are the core contents of the 11th Central Conference and the documents for implementation, especially Directive No. 45-CT/TW, dated April 14, 2025 of the Politburo replacing Directive 35 on organizing party congresses at all levels towards the 14th National Party Congress; Conclusion No. 150-KL/TW of the Politburo on guidelines for building personnel for provincial-level Party committees subject to consolidation, merger and newly established communes; Plan No. 47-KH/BCĐ of the Central Steering Committee summarizing Resolution 18 on assigning responsibilities for implementation with 121 groups of tasks associated with the time to be completed calculated by day.

Along with the direct dissemination at the Conference, these documents and other guidelines have been, are being, and will be sent to ministries, branches, and localities as soon as possible for implementation (basically, in April 2025, all guiding documents will be issued). Also this week, the full draft of the 4 documents submitted to the 14th Congress will be sent to comrades for comments and as a basis for building documents at their level. The Politburo issued Decision No. 284-QD/TW, dated April 12, 2025, assigning 19 Politburo members and Secretariat members in charge of localities to monitor, urge, guide, direct, and promptly remove difficulties and obstacles for comrades during the implementation process.

Thus, basically, the policy is clear, the plan, schedule and implementation roadmap are specific. This is a new point in organizing the dissemination and implementation of the Party's Resolutions in the direction of clear people, clear work, clear methods, clear responsibilities, clear completion time, and can be implemented immediately after the Conference.

After today's Conference, I believe that you have identified the tasks that need to be done in the coming time at your agencies, units, and localities. Each cadre and party member attending the Conference has also envisioned their personal responsibilities in the common "revolution" of the country. After this Conference, Party committees and organizations at all levels have the responsibility to continue to study, thoroughly, thoroughly, and carefully grasp the contents of the Resolution and develop specific action plans and programs for implementation. Faced with the requirement to simultaneously deploy a very large amount of work, with a wide scope, short time, high quality, and many unprecedented tasks, I would like to emphasize 3 more general requirements and 4 notes for unification in leadership, direction, and implementation as follows:

The three general requirements are:

(1) It is necessary to determine the highest political determination in leading and directing the implementation of the Resolution of the 11th Central Conference, identifying this as a "revolution" in the arrangement of the organizational apparatus, the arrangement of administrative units and reform and innovation for the development of the country. Party committees, party organizations, and leaders at all levels must be closely and resolutely in leading, directing, and thoroughly informing the contingent of cadres and party members to fully and deeply understand the special importance of this policy, creating unity of perception and ideology within the entire Party and spreading it to the entire society, determined to successfully implement the goals and orientations set by the Central Committee. Focus on leading and directing agencies to resolutely implement tasks in the spirit of "playing the right role, knowing the job", coordinating synchronously, rhythmically, and closely from the Central to the localities and between localities, without the idea of ​​"your rights, my rights", this locality, that locality, all for the common interests of the country, for the people.

(2) Implement the work in the spirit of "running and lining up at the same time", but must be careful, certain, methodical, not hasty, subjective; have priority order, do each job firmly, do this job must take into account other related work, and must properly carry out the prescribed procedures, do not cut corners, do it carelessly, or do any work roughly. Stick to the timelines in the plan, ensure that the work is carried out on schedule, especially important timelines such as: Before June 30, 2025, must complete the amendment of the Constitution and related laws; start ending the operation of new district and commune-level administrative units that have come into operation from July 1, 2025 according to the transitional roadmap and complete all before August 15, 2025; complete the merger of provinces before September 1, 2025; Complete the Party Congress at the commune level before August 31, 2025; complete the provincial congress before October 31, 2025; The 14th National Party Congress in the first quarter of 2026; Election of National Assembly Deputies and People's Councils at all levels in March 2026. Based on the above roadmap, localities, agencies and units are encouraged to complete the work early before the prescribed time in the spirit of "early stabilization for development".

(3) Strengthen information and propaganda to create consensus in society, fully promote the people's right to mastery, respect and listen to people's opinions, the processes and procedures for collecting people's opinions must be implemented in accordance with regulations, especially those related to amending and supplementing the Constitution, merging provinces and merging communes. Mobilize and propagate among the people, subject to the supervision and contributions of the people, create consensus and response to implementation by the people.

Four issues to note are:

One is, on implementing the policy of rearranging and reorganizing administrative units and building a two-level local government. This is a policy originating from the strategic vision of long-term national development; the Party Central Committee, the Politburo, and the Secretariat have discussed and evaluated carefully, considering many aspects to reach a high consensus on implementing this policy with the principles and criteria for rearranging provincial-level administrative units, determining the name and location of the provincial-level political-administrative center after the rearrangement; the criteria, standards and orientations for rearranging the commune level as announced to the comrades. Implementing this policy will have a certain impact on the thoughts and feelings of cadres, party members and the people - This is understandable because each of us Vietnamese people has deeply imprinted in our memories images of our homeland, the place where we were born and raised. However, facing the new development requirements of the country, we must change our thinking and vision; unify our awareness and ideology; must overcome oneself, sacrifice personal interests for the common interests of the country; overcome worries, anxiety, psychology, normal habits; overcome regional psychology, mood to move towards a broader mindset, vision - "country is homeland."

The content of the guidelines is complete. I would like to emphasize 3 more issues that need to be thoroughly understood: (1) Streamlining the apparatus of the political system, merging provinces, not organizing district levels, merging communes is not simply a matter of adjusting the organization of the apparatus and administrative boundaries but also a matter of adjusting economic space, adjusting the division of labor, decentralization, and allocation of resources for development. It is an opportunity for us to screen, arrange, and build a team of cadres that truly meet the requirements of national development in the new period. (2) The spirit of implementation must be drastic and urgent, "running and lining up at the same time", "work must not be interrupted", "the new apparatus must be better and more effective than the old apparatus"; the implementation roadmap must be methodical and scientific, ensuring compliance with the Party Charter, regulations, principles, and directions of the Central Committee; strong, thorough, scientific, humane, ensuring long-term vision, ensuring the formation and expansion of economic, social and cultural development space suitable for national development. (3) The local government after the arrangement must ensure streamlining, effectiveness, efficiency, closeness to the people, meeting the requirements of modern social governance, achieving the goals of rapid and sustainable growth; creating new positions and strengths for the task of ensuring national defense, security, and foreign affairs; creating momentum and driving force for economic development; promoting the development of science and technology, innovation, digital transformation; taking better and better care of the material and spiritual life of the people.

In the process of implementing this policy, localities must be very proactive and responsible in developing plans to arrange administrative units at the commune and ward levels; because you are the ones who understand the area better than anyone else. Based on the criteria, standards and orientation of the Central Government to reduce the number of units by about 60 - 70%, localities should proactively study to have specific arrangement plans suitable for the area, the highest goal is to build a streamlined, effective, efficient, close to the people, proactively oriented towards the people at the commune level to serve better. It is necessary to pay attention to overcoming both trends: (1) Merging communes and wards that are too large like a "miniature district level" leading to not being able to manage the area, not being able to proactively serve the people, leading to turning the policy of not organizing the district level into not organizing the commune level. (2) Merging communes and wards that are too small leads to limitations in space, room for development, and more focal points, leading to cumbersomeness and inefficiency. These are issues that I suggest the Standing Committees of the provinces must discuss and calculate very carefully, in the spirit of a long-term vision, for the country and the people, to have the most reasonable arrangement and planning plan.

On the basis of the two-level local government model, central and local agencies need to promptly review and promulgate mechanisms, policies, strategies, planning, and inter-regional and inter-base issues, ensuring consistency nationwide and in each locality. Consistently follow the principle of "locality decides, locality acts, locality is responsible", promote decentralization from the central to provincial levels, especially in promulgating mechanisms, policies, planning, finance, budget, and investment. The grassroots level organizes policy implementation (from the central and provincial levels), focusing on tasks serving the people, directly solving community problems, and providing basic and essential public services to local people. The special zone (island) government is granted many autonomy rights, ensuring flexibility and proactive response when sudden and unexpected events and situations occur to firmly protect national independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

All of this work must be carried out at the same time, ensuring synchronization, unity, smoothness, and efficiency, and not allowing the reorganization of the apparatus to disrupt the operations of agencies, production and business activities, and daily activities of people and businesses.

“Second, Regarding personnel work. The scope of cadres affected and influenced by this reorganization is very large. Our general policy is to initially basically arrange the staffing of cadres, civil servants, and public employees (including party agencies, government agencies, and mass organizations) at the provincial, district, and commune levels as they are currently to ensure stability; after the new apparatus comes into operation, we will direct the review and completion of job positions, and determine the staffing of each level within the overall staffing of the entire political system. I request that Party committees and organizations at all levels strictly implement the principle of the Party's unified leadership in building the apparatus, personnel work, and management of the cadre team and staffing of the political system. We must be extremely impartial and objective in arranging cadres; fully implement regulations and guidelines on cadre work to ensure publicity and transparency, strengthen control of power, and link power with personal responsibility. Do not allow disunity, group interests, power and position seeking, localism, factionalism, corruption, and waste in the work of arranging and assigning cadres, organizing the apparatus and administrative units at all levels.

Pay special attention to doing a good job in selecting and arranging leaders, especially heads of provincial and communal agencies after the merger. It is necessary to calculate synchronously and interconnectively between all four stages: Arranging cadres after the merger - Personnel for provincial and communal party congresses - Personnel for the 14th Congress - Personnel for the election of the National Assembly and People's Councils at all levels. Personnel work is already very important, and is now even more important in the face of new requirements. As I said, the first criterion for arranging cadres is because of work requirements, then comes other criteria. Personnel for leaders at all levels and personnel for the 14th Congress must have "enough virtue - enough talent - enough heart - enough scope - enough strength - enough revolutionary enthusiasm" to shoulder the historical responsibility of the country. In the current situation, there is no room for opportunistic, competitive, mediocre, hesitant, afraid of innovation, and self-interested cadres. Those who feel they do not meet the requirements should voluntarily withdraw, making way for more deserving people - voluntarily standing behind for development is also an act of courage, bravery, pride, and praise. The selection and arrangement of leaders of local agencies after mergers and consolidations is the responsibility of the Party Committee Standing Committee according to decentralization. We request that comrades discuss and reach an agreement to arrange "the right person, the right job" in the spirit of Conclusion No. 150-KL/TW of the Politburo on guidelines for building personnel for provincial Party Committees subject to mergers and consolidations and newly established communes.

Third, on party congress documents at all levels. The draft 4 documents submitted to the 14th National Party Congress approved at the 11th Central Conference have added many very important contents, demonstrating new thinking and vision in national development, determined to realize 2 100-year goals (by 2030 to become a developing country with modern industry and high average income; by 2045 to become a developed socialist country with high income). Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has fully informed you about these contents, especially core issues such as: "establishing a new growth model"; "building a modern national education system on par with the region and the world" "breakthrough in science and technology development, innovation and national digital transformation"; developing the private economy as "the most important driving force of the national economy"... I would like to emphasize: These are very big and very strategic issues. In the near future, the Central Committee will discuss a lot about the new growth model in Vietnam. The world has gone too far, they already have factories and ports "without lights" (operated by robots, artificial intelligence, fully automated, no direct human, working all day and night, no breaks, no shifts, non-stop... just in terms of time, productivity has increased 3-4 times), if we do not change, it will be difficult to catch up, the risk of falling behind is clear; or the problem of how to prepare human resources for the next stage to have human resources with enough courage, intelligence, health, and vision for the country to develop in the next stage? If we do not worry about it right now, it will be difficult to achieve...

The Party Congresses at all levels and the 14th National Party Congress take place in a special context, when we are simultaneously carrying out many major revolutionary tasks. We must both arrange and streamline the organizational apparatus - reorganize administrative units - accelerate and make breakthroughs in economic development - and organize the Congress. Therefore, it is necessary to focus on leading and directing the organization of the Congress to ensure it is tight and methodical in accordance with the spirit of Directive No. 45-CT/TW of the Politburo, especially in newly merged and consolidated localities. I note that it is necessary to attach more importance and focus on the preparation of documents (some places are showing signs of taking this issue lightly, mainly focusing on personnel plans). Provincial and municipal Party Committees focus on leading and organizing thorough, in-depth, and effective discussions of the viewpoints, goals, policies, and major orientations stated in the draft documents of the 14th National Party Congress; Urgently develop and complete the draft documents of their level, must complete the draft before June 30, 2025 (including for provinces after the merger). Thus, although the merger has not been officially completed, comrades have had to think and reflect to outline the development path of the newly established province and commune based on the new space, land and resources. This is a very important job that requires intellectual investment, effort and close coordination of localities to do this job well. Resolutions of party congresses at all levels from party cells to commune, province and industry committees after the congress are valuable for immediate implementation, without waiting for resolutions from higher levels to implement.

Four is, on implementing the Resolution of the 11th Central Conference at the same time as carrying out important major tasks of the country. We thoroughly grasp and implement the Resolution of the 11th Central Conference in the context of extremely complicated developments in the world and the region, especially the "global tariff war" which poses many new challenges, but is also an opportunity for us to assert ourselves.

We have successfully organized many important foreign affairs activities, especially the recent visit of General Secretary and President of China Xi Jinping with many important cooperation agreements; the 4th Summit of the Partnership for Green Growth and Global Goals (P4G) with 46 countries and more than 1,000 international delegates attending, these events continue to affirm Vietnam's role and position in multilateral forums and in the international arena. The whole country is focusing on implementing many large and important tasks at the same time, focusing on accelerating and making breakthroughs in socio-economic development, striving to achieve the growth target of 8% or more in 2025, creating momentum for double-digit growth in the next period; continuing to implement Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW on breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation and national digital transformation; continue to implement Resolution No. 59-NQ/TW on promoting international integration; in the near future, the Politburo will continue to have Resolutions on private economic development, Resolutions on education and training development... All of these tasks are very important and must be carried out in accordance with the set goals and requirements, not neglecting any task because of organizational arrangements.

Provincial and municipal Party Committees need to urgently overcome the shortcomings and limitations that the 19 inspection delegations of the Politburo and the Secretariat have pointed out, especially overcoming the situation where a number of leaders and cadres have a wait-and-see mentality, listening to the organization's arrangements, thus limiting their decisiveness in implementing work... In the immediate future, focus on organizing well the activities to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification; the 80th anniversary of the August Revolution and National Day on September 2, rekindling the heroic spirit of the entire nation in the past, turning it into a driving force to well carry out the important, urgent, revolutionary tasks that our entire Party, people and army are striving to carry out today.

Dear comrades,

The work ahead is very busy and urgent. I request that comrades from the Central to the grassroots level present at today's Conference promote a high sense of responsibility towards the Party, the State and the People, focus on leadership and direction with the highest determination to complete the goals set out in the Resolution of the 11th Conference of the 13th Party Central Committee, prepare a solid foundation for the 14th Party Congress, and firmly bring the country into the era of rising up and developing the Vietnamese nation.

Once again, I wish you, comrades and compatriots, health, happiness and success.

Thank you very much”./.