A national conference on how to further efforts to fight and prevent corruption opened in Hanoi on May 5.

Opening the conference, Chairman of the Central Steering Committee for Corruption Prevention and Fight - Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong stressed the importance of this event, the first of its kind held after the committee’s establishment in early 2013.

He noted that although the anti-corruption fight has recorded initial positive outcomes thanks to the high resolve and drastic measures taken by all sectors and authorities at all levels, the issue remains an urgent problem causing great public concern.

A report at the conference pointed to the good work in building anti-corruption institutions and conducting campaigns to raise the public’s awareness about the issue. Administrative procedure reform is underway together with efforts to enhance transparency in the operation of State agencies and organisations. The handling of corruption cases also saw good progress with a number of serious cases put on trial, winning public approval.

At the same time, the report underlined that many State agencies and organisations have yet to pay sufficient attention to the issue, thus performed poorly in self-inspection to detect corruptive acts within their organisation. The review and revision of policies, regulations and mechanisms to shore up socio-economic management and prevent corruption is done in a slow manner, failing to meet the urgent demand of the fight, while some preventive measures proved to be ineffective.

Later in the day, the conference will focus on evaluating the weaknesses in anti-corruption work, identifying difficulties and obstacles as well as their causes with a view to working out solutions to intensifying the fight in the time to come.-VNA