Prominent among the invited guests were Party General Secretary NongDuc Manh, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, National Assembly ChairmanNguyen Phu Trong and President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front CentralCommittee Huynh Dam.
Opening the two-day congress, Deputy PM Nguyen Sinh Hung said this isthe first time the Party and State have held an ethnic minority congresson a national scale.
The congress aims to review and evaluate ethnic minority-relatedaffairs, confirm the Party and State’s consistent policy on ethnicgroups’ issues and great national unity, and honour huge contributionsof ethnic groups to the Vietnamese revolution’s victory, the deputy PMsaid.
Hung, who is also head of the steering committee for the congress,added that the event serves as a forum for exchange as well as creatingconsensus and solid confidence of ethnic minority people in theleadership of the Party on the threshold of the XIth National PartyCongress.
In his speech, Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh stated,throughout the past struggles for national independence and stages ofthe Vietnamese revolution, ethnic minority people, together withcompatriots nationwide, have faithfully followed the Party and Uncle Ho,devoting their services and even blood to the common cause.
The Party chief stressed that, despite various difficulties facing thenation in recent years, the Party and State have reserved remarkableresources to foster socio-economic development in the ethnicminority-inhabited and mountainous areas.
As a result, the living conditions of ethnic minority groups have beenimproved gradually, both materially and spiritually, while efforts havebeen made to preserve their traditional cultural identity, he said.
The Party leader asked the government, ministries, centrally-runagencies and mass organisations, Party committees and administrations atall levels and the entire people to continue improving public awarenessof ethnic minority-related affairs, effectively implement the Party andState’s guidelines and policies on ethnic minority groups.
He also stressed the need to turn these guidelines and polices intoaction programmes in an effort to further bolster the development interms of economy, socio-culture, security and national denfence inethnic minority people-inhabited and mountainous regions.
Well performing policies regarding equality and solidarity, improvingaccess to education, developing human resources, creating more stablejobs, ensuring social security for ethnic minority groups and preservingtheir traditional cultural values are also major tasks for the years tocome, Manh noted.
The Party general secretary called upon ethnic minority people to joinefforts with the entire nation in ensuring security and nationaldefence in important, remote and border regions, and preventingreactionary forces’ attempts to abuse ethnic minority-related andreligious issues to undermine the country’s social order, nationalsecurity, and great unity among ethnic groups.
Minister and Chairman of the Committee for Ethnic Affairs Giang SeoPhu presented a report at the congress, pointing out the fact that theethnic minority groups-inhabited areas have got a facelift thanks to theParty and State’s policies as well as socio-economic developmentprogrammes.
The number of poor households in these areas has dropped 4-5 percenteach year, while the univeralisation of secondary education is underwayand the poor are provided with health insurance, free medical check-upsand treatment, he said.
The targets through 2020 will include speeding up hunger eradicationand poverty reduction, building more necessary infrastructure incommunes, improving the quality of human resources, providing vocationaltraining for ethnic minority people, completing the universalisation ofsecondary education, and maintaining political security, social orderand national defence in ethnic minority-inhabited and mountainous areas./.