State President Nguyen Minh Triet attended the opening of the ninth Party Committee Congress (2010-2015 term) of the Mekong Delta province of An Giang on October 18.

The President said that An Giang boasts a great deal of potential in agriculture and has an advantage for trading with other countries.

He told the province to invest in applying the latest scientific achievements in rural agriculture development and to modernise the local traffic network to expand international cooperation.

The State leader praised An Giang’s fast economic growth, saying that it is leading the nation in fresh water fish and rice.

However, President Triet pointed out the unsustainable economic development and poverty reduction, the unfavourable investment environment, the falling competitiveness index and a slowdown in economic restructuring, except for the rapid development of services.

There remain weaknesses in the infrastructure, and the environment, he said, adding that education, training and the quality of human resources have not been appropriately developed.

He emphasised the need for the province to pay attention to strengthening the Fatherland Front and Party organisations, noting that the authorities should listen to people’s opinions and attach more importance to human resources training.

The provincial Party Committee, the eighth tenure, reported that An Giang had recorded an average gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 10.34 percent per year (compared with 12 percent set by the previous provincial party congress’s Resolution) and its per-capita annual income had reached almost 21.2 million VND (1,141 USD) in 2010, an increase of more than 2.5 fold over 2005.

By 2010, the revenue from services made up 53.72 percent, agriculture represented 33.46 percent and industry and construction accounted for 12.82 percent of the province’s total economic production value, said the committee.

According to the report, during the 2006-2010 period, the province raised 87.3 trillion VND for social development and it collected 13.8 trillion VND in taxes.

An Giang’s total export revenue for the past five years has exceeded 3 billion USD (compared with the target of 2.68 billion USD), treble that of the 2001-2005 period.

The congress will close on October 19./.