Head of the Party Central Committee’s Economic Commission Vuong Dinh Hue has asked Hanoi to lead the country in fulfilling industrialisation and modernisation targets one or two years ahead of schedule.

Hanoi should develop itself worthy being the country’s major political, economic, cultural, education-training and science-technology centre, he said at a working session with the municipal Party Committee on December 26.

To do this, the city needs to be more active and proactive in turning objectives into specific programmes and projects while speeding up the restructuring of its economy, focusing on agriculture, industry and services, he said.

It should define its economic development focuses and then take synchronous measures to realise them, he added.

Secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee Pham Quang Nghi reported that despite difficulties, the capital city has over the past time recorded encouraging results, with an average Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate of 8.91 percent between 2011 and 2013, a 1.5-fold increase against the country’s rate.

In 2013 alone, Hanoi contributed 10.1 percent of the country’s GDP, 7.5 percent of export turnover, 17.2 percent of State budget and 21.64 percent of total social investment. The city surpassed its 2013 budget collection target by 0.3 percent, gathering over 160 trillion VND (7.62 billion USD), up 10 percent compared to the previous year.

Together with considerable achievements in infrastructure development and new-styled rural building, the sectors of culture, education, science-technology, and health have been paid due attention, Nghi said.

However, the municipal leader frankly indicated the city’s shortcomings and limitations such as poor management, ineffective coordination between agencies, weak competitiveness, high bad debts, slow administrative reforms, and inadequate inspection.-VNA