Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung (front, 4th from left) attends the event (Photo: VNA) The central province of Quang Tri aims to rise to the middle-income status in the country by 2020, as heard at the province’s 16th Party congress which opened on September 23.
Addressing 333 delegates at the congress, Politburo member and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung said Quang Tri should make full use of its position in the East-West Economic Corridor to boost its economic growth and fulfil the target.
Praising the province’s commendable achievements over the past five years, the PM suggested Quang Tri focus its investment on building infrastructure for the South-East Economic Zone as well as key projects to better exploit the East-West Economic Corridor and border economic zones in the Vietnam-Laos shared border.
With its strategic location, Quang Tri has been added to the key central economic region, requiring the locality to revise its socio-economic master plan accordingly to attract more investment while strengthening regional connectivity.
It is also crucial to speed up agricultural restructuring in line with building new-style rural areas to build a modern and sustainable agriculture sector along with boosting maritime economy, he added.
Together with stepping up administrative reform, increasing provincial competitiveness and improving the business environment, Quang Tri should also further connections with two neighbouring Lao provinces, he asked.
The PM continued to say that economic growth should go hand-in-hand with cultural development, adding that besides increasing social security, Quang Tri should pay more attention to preserving and promoting traditional cultural values as well as revolutionary and historical sites.
PM Nguyen Tan Dung also suggested Quang Tri propose policies to support investment in infrastructure that strengthens defence and security capacity in line with boosting socio-economic development.
The PM also highlighted that a key task for Quang Tri in the next five years is Party building in terms of politics, ideology and organisation towards a Party organisation of purity and strength with high leadership capacity, playing central role in the political system and society.
It was reported at the congress that the province posted an average GDP growth of 7.4 percent a year in the 2011-2015 tenure, and average income per capita is estimated at 34 million VND (around 1,510 USD) this year.
In particular, the household poverty rate has dropped from 19.7 percent in early 2011 to 6.9 percent in 2015.
During his stay in Quang Tri, PM Nguyen Tan Dung also visited the Quang Tri ancient citadel and the National Martyr’s Cemetery Road 9 to pay tribute to fallen soldiers.-VNA
