In his article on the Centre for Political Studies of International Relations and Development’s website, political analyst Alberto Cruz said that the Congress plays a decisive role not only in identifying a direction of the Doi Moi (renewal) process in Vietnam but also in the country’s international integration policy.

He divided Vietnam’s two-decade implementation of the Doi Moi process into two phases. The first phase began with the sixth National Party Congress in 1986 to 1995 and the second phase commenced after the visit of US President Bill Clinton and the normalisation of Vietnam-US relations, which made it possible for Vietnam to open its market, join the World Trade Organisation in 2007 and attract international investment inflows.

Differing from other Southeast Asian countries, Vietnam is still focused on solving social issues and protecting people by all means, including providing preferential credits for small-and medium-sized enterprises, increasing investment in infrastructure projects and creating jobs for labourers, according to Cruz.

These facts have helped Vietnam cope with the recent global economic crisis better than other “Asian tigers”, he said, citing the WB’s report that the crisis led to a 37 percent reduction in Vietnam’s growth rate, while the rates were 155 percent in in Thailand, 137 percent in Malaysia, 219 percent in the US, 224 percent in the EU and 335 percent in Japan.

Australian radio and the “Connect Asia” programme of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) news reported on January 10 said that the 11^th National Congress of the Communist Party of Vietnam will select personnel for the 2011-15 Party Central Committee and decide on the 10-year socio-economic strategy for 2011-20.

According to the source, this year’s Congress will take place for nine days, from January 11-19 instead of four or five days as in the previous congresses, which enables nearly 1,400 delegates, representing more than 3.6 million Party members, to discuss and consider issues carefully.

The source quoted Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung as saying that Vietnam needs an abundant workforce with high quality professional skills, a modern infrastructure system and effective operation of State-owned enterprises with the aim of turning a “modern industrial country” by 2020.

The Vietnamese government targets a yearly average per capita income of US$2,000 in its draft socio-economic development plan for 2011-15.