Tay Ninh province also needs to strengthen ties between the Party and the people, he said, adding that the province should draw up a comprehensive development strategy and put forward mechanisms, policies and measures to reach its targets for industrialisation and modernisation. 

The province was asked to focus on agricultural production, but prioritise industrial development. 

Chairman Trong praised the province’s socio-economic achievements over the past few years as it has recorded an annual GDP growth rate of 14 percent, higher than the country’s average. 

According to the province, in 2009 and the first half of this year, it reached a GDP growth rate at of 10.7 percent and a per-capita income of US$1,276. Its export turnover reached approximately US$ 350 million and is expected to reach US$650 million by the years-end. 

So far, the province has attracted 197 FDI projects with a total registered capital of nearly US$890 million and 247 other projects with domestic investors that have injected over VND29 trillion. 

All the communes in the province have also completed universalisation of primary and secondary education. 99 percent of households now have electricity and 83 percent of rural families have access to clean water. 

In the first two quarters, the province built 1,347 houses for poor households, generated jobs for 7,544 workers and reduced the poverty rate to 2 percent. 

Later the same day, Chairman Trong went to An Tinh commune in Trang Bang district, a heroic unit of the people’s armed forces, as well as Trang Bang Industrial Park . 

He also presented gifts to 94-year-old heroic mother Tran Thi Tham in Chau Thanh district’s Thanh Dien commune on the occasion of War Invalids and Martyrs’ Day.