The role of Party cells in businesses is a key ideological and political orientation for their development, Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyen Phu Trong said.

More attention needs to be paid to educating businesses in political thought in order to help Party members and workers maintain a healthy state of virtue and morality, Chairman Trong stressed at a discussion on the leadership role of Party cells in businesses in Hanoi on Jan. 22.

The work also promotes the role of mass organisations in firms, he added.

However, he emphasised the necessity to invigorate the functions and the leadership role of Party cells in businesses, based on ensuring the principles of democracy, as well as attuning the operations of Party cells and the management of Party members in accordance with the conditions of each individual business.

Attention needs to be paid to creating strong and positive relations between the Party cell and the directorate of a business, the Chairman said.

The workshop was held to support the review, studying and creation of documents for the upcoming XIth National Party Congress.

Apart from reports from Party cells on their role in different types of businesses, and the difficulties and obstacles they face in their work, delegates to the workshop were presented with a report on the implementation of the Resolutions of the IXth and Xth National Party Congress on the restructuring, development and improvement of State-owned companies in Hanoi.

Seventeen reports at the workshop stressed the vitally important role and position of the Party cells in businesses, including private and foreign-invested ones. Major delegates said that the Party should admit private company owners who are eligible and volunteer to become members.

According to the Hanoi Department of Planning and Investment, more than 70,000 private companies, and nearly 2,000 foreign joint ventures and wholly foreign capital firms are operating in the city. The private companies have a total registered capital of 17 trillion VND, employing between 20-200 workers each. They mainly invest in quick-profit, low-investment areas such as trade, services, tourism, high-tech, the processing industry, and clean agriculture, contributing to 22 percent of the city’s budget.

The city had, by the end of June, 1,101 Party cells with 52,708 members from businesses./.