Hanoi (VNA)❀ – The 29th Diplomatic Conference opened in Hanoi on August 22 with the purpose of seeking measures to increase the efficiency of external activities and international integration to successfully realise the 12th National Party Congress resolution.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh said that Vietnam is entering a new and strategic development phase in the industrialisation and modernisation process, which requires the diplomatic sector to bear heavier responsibilities. The sector’s main tasks are to maintain a peaceful and stable environment and take advantage of external resources to boost national development, safeguard national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as increasing the country’s position and prestige in the international arena, in order to contribute to peace, national independence, democracy and social progress in the region and the world, stated Minh. The 29th Diplomatic Conference will review the diplomatic work over the past five years in the 11th Party tenure and the two-year implementation of the 28 th conference’s action programme, and propose measures to effectively use tools of diplomacy so as to promote sustainable development and consolidate Vietnam’s position in the global production and supply chains, he added. Addressing the event, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong stressed that the external work is a motivation to realise Vietnam’s two strategic missions of building and safeguarding the nation. As a sector with easy access to information about the world’s political, economic and scientific and technological affairs, the diplomatic sector should prioritise forecasting and providing updated information about short-term and long-term development of the regional and world economies to help Vietnamese leaders in managing the domestic economy, Trong suggested. He emphasised the need to have a thorough grasp of leaders’ directions on the relationship between cooperation and fighting to safeguard the country’s independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, protect national interests and maintain a peaceful and cooperative environment for development. The sector should coordinate with others to bring into full play the country’s soft strength, particularly in culture, so to popularise its cultural values to the world. Intensifying the Party building work is a need to fulfil all these tasks, he added. In a changing world and in the context that Vietnam is facing both development opportunities and challenges, the external work should be an effective peace remedy to narrow differences, prevent conflicts and expand cooperation. At the conference, leaders of the Ministries of Defence and Public Security, the Party Central Committee’s Commission for External Relations, the National Assembly Committee for External Affairs, and the Vietnam Union of Friendship Associations delivered speeches on assessments on the regional and world situations as well as measures to better external activities. The conference will last until August 26.-VNA