The Vietnam Cooperatives’ Alliance needs to improve its capacity and effectiveness of operation in the 2010-2015 term.

Truong Tan Sang, Party politburo member and standing member of the Party Central Committee’s Secretariat, made the remarks while attending the 4th National Congress of the Vietnam Cooperatives’ Alliance (VCA) in Hanoi on Aug. 13.

He stressed that developing a collective economy is of great significance to the national economic development, but also to socio-politics.

Developing cooperatives, a key factor of the collective economy, was to drive the collective economy together with the State-owned economy to become a firm foundation for the national economy, and was one of the decisive factors ensuring a socialist orientation in Vietnam ’s market economy, he said.

The Party official urged the VCA to strengthen and develop cooperatives in all fields and localities. He also called for the establishment of cooperatives in new areas such as housing, healthcare, environment and social services.

In the 2005-2010 period, the cooperative sector achieved positive changes in quantity, structure, capacity and operational quality.

The country now has 360,000 cooperative groups, a 20 percent increase since 2005, with more than 18,000 cooperatives and 53 cooperative societies, a 13 percent increase since 2005.

The congress was also attended by Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai, officials from ministries, sectors, agencies and almost 500 delegates from cooperatives nationwide.

Dao Xuan Can was elected as President of the VCA in the 2010-2015 term./.