High-quality workforce and technological advances are breakthroughs to carry the country forward in the current global integration context, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung told a gathering of science-technology intellectuals in Hanoi on May 26.

The meeting took place ahead of the upcoming seventh National Congress of the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA) for the 2015-2020 tenure that will bring together 600 delegates across the country.

The host praised VUSTA for popularising knowledge and promoting mass innovation movements, playing an active part in encouraging private investments into health care, education and science-technology.

He hoped that VUSTA will continue assembling leading scientists, experts and managers working as advisors to the Party and State, with all necessary backing from the Party and State.

The PM requested VUSTA motivate its members and their fellows outside to work on technological innovations that serve socio-economy, culture, and national defence-security.

VUSTA President Dang Vu Minh, for his part, thanked the Party and State for their helpful support to VUSTA operations over the past time, saying that the Government issued important documents as a legal framework for the union to do its primary job of social counseling.

With chapters across 63 cities and provinces nationwide, VUSTA will follow the examples of predecessors and dedicate their brainpower to the nation development, he promised.-VNA