The eighth National Patriotic Emulation Congress opened in Hanoi on December 27 to review the work of campaigns and movements in boosting the country’s socio-economic development.

President of the Central Rewards-Emulation Council Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said various patriotic role-model movements held over the past 62 years have created a great source of encouragement for the people and soldiers in surmounting numerous difficulties and driving the Vietnamese revolution to success.

“We can say that the history of Vietnamese revolution gave birth to patriotic role-model movements and that history affirmed the position as well as important role and immense effects these movements had made in the revolutionary cause of the Party and the nation,” PM Dung noted.

Addressing the event, Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh emphasised discovering role models, multiplying those exemplary people and promptly rewarding them are significant in making role-model movements more effective and better.

Reviewing the campaigns and movements in the 2005-2010 period, Vice State President Nguyen Thi Doan, the first Vice President of the Central Rewards-Emulation Council, affirmed that patriotic role-model movements have pooled the people’s strength, encouraged creativity, and solidified the people’s credibility in the Party.

The movements have also become effective management tools to help the nation implement political tasks, spur socio-economic development and improve the people’s living conditions, Doan said.

Patriotic role-model movements in the 2011-2015 period will concentrate on boosting the country’s renovation comprehensively, promoting fast and sustainable economic development, raising the people’s material and spiritual life, maintaining socio-political stability, enhancing external relations, and defending national independence, sovereignty, and national integrity, thus creating a foundation for the country to basically become an industrialised country by 2020, Doan said.

The two-day congress looked to highlight shining examples and ways of improving the quality of role-model movements and rewards and is expected to launch more patriotic role-model movements nationwide.

The event brought together about 1,500 outstanding delegates with two-thirds being individuals and the remaining, representatives from different organisations.

The oldest patriotic role model is 94 year-old Professor and Labour Hero Vu Khieu and the youngest is a 10 year-old student, Tran Ngoc Diem Huyen from the Hanoi-based Thanh Cong Primary School./.