VietNamNet Bridge - The people’s attention to policies to be laid down by the Communist Party to the Party Congress reflects real issues that they face in their lives.

2015 bears a hallmark of the year of preparing policies and personnel for the 12th Communist Party Congress. These are party’s policies, but since the Communist Party is the ruling party, its policies will, through the state, have impact on society and people’s daily life.

The patients of state-owned hospitals want to know if they have to pay more for healthcare services. Poor households want to know if they can enjoy any preferences from the state.Farmers want to know if they can expand the land areas for cultivation, and small and medium sized enterprises want like to know if the state will have any new policies to support them.

If people’s benefits cannot be expanded or even decline, it will be difficult to obtain consensus in the society, and there will not be unity between the benefits of the ruling party and the benefits of the people.

Party’s policies, if they are right and reasonable, will have good impact on the society. And unreasonable policies will bring serious consequences.

From this angle, one can see the heavy burden and responsibility the ruling party has to bear, especially in Vietnam, where there is only one party ruling in the political system, though the party welcomes opinions from all classes in society during policy design.

The last 30 years of doi moi (renovation) shows the correctness of the Party’s policies, especially economic policies.

The Party’s policies have had a positive impact on people’s life. The face of the country has changed a lot, while people’s lives have improved.

However, it is necessary to uncover unreasonable policies and learn experiences from them.

What we can learn from the policies are as follows:

1. What kind of policies does the Party need to design? Party policies will, through the state, become laws which will be brought into life. In the market economy, there is no need for the State to intervene in everything, and therefore, it only needs to lay down the most important policies.

2. It is necessary to cut the time needed to create a new policy. In the years from 1986 to 2016, Vietnam will experience seven party congresses, and new policies are made from every congress. However, it takes too long to design policies.

It took a long time from recognizing the multi-sector economy, including the private economic sector, to deciding that it is necessary to build a market-based economy. And only by now is the private economic sector recognized as serving an important driving force in the national economy.

The same thing occurred with issues relating to the state’s structure. It took too long to recognize the three rights – the legislative power, judicial power and executive power, and too long to establish mutual control in the implementation of the three rights.

As a result, the policies will have a slow positive impact on society, which is not good for the nation’s development.

3. It is necessary to not create a policy unless there is deep understanding about it.

Though Vietnam has been following the market-based economy for years, Vietnam is still in a learning process. There are still many issues it does not have deep understanding about, and it will make mistakes if it releases decisions without understanding.

How to apply the ‘market-based’ principle in the state’s administration, for example, is a difficult matter. The state of Vietnam, like other states in the world, provides public services to people and society. 

People can feel the state’s attention and care through the public services the state commits to provide, especially in education and healthcare sectors. So, how is the role of the state in this matter? How should the concept ‘socialization of public services’ be understood? How should the public services fees be designed in the context of the market economy?

What about ‘socialization of public services’? Does it mean that the state will scale down the services it is now providing, and replace them with private services?

4. Policies need to contain fewer slogans.

Dinh Duy Hoa