Gia Lai (VNA) – ♑Party General Secretary To Lam has asked the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai to promptly review targets and tasks, and specific solutions to address bottlenecks and obstacles hindering its development and realise the goals set in the 16th provincial Party Congress's Resolution.

At a working session with the province's key officials on January 6 morning, the Party chief emphasised the determination to turn Gia Lai into a prominent locality in the central coast and Central Highlands regions, which thrives based on organic agriculture, diverse ecosystems, rich and unique cultural heritage, and sustainable social and environmental development, towards stronger growth and improving the quality of life for its residents. Despite challenges, Gia Lai holds significant potential for developing large-scale agriculture, processing industry, he stressed, adding that the province's abundant tourism resources, a well-connected transport network linked with other regional localities and key economic zones nationwide, serve as a foundation for it to attract investment, foster trade connection and develop renewable energy. Building the Party and a transparent and strong political system is a pivotal task to meet new requirements and missions, the leader said, stressing that it is necessary to enhance the quality of grassroots party cells and the grassroots political system, while preserving solidarity within the Party and among ethnic groups in the province. Lam urged the provincial authorities to strictly implement the resolutions of the Party Central Committee and approved plans and strategies to promote comprehensive economic development in Gia Lai, focusing on three main pillars of hi-tech and organic agriculture, industry, and tourism. He asked for solutions to improve the investment and business environment and transport infrastructure, underlining the need to speed up development of digital economy and innovation, and connectivity among urban areas, economic hubs, raw material regions, and tourism destinations. Gia Lai must strongly promote the private economy to rapidly increase its contribution to the provincial GRDP; expand effective collective economic models; better the operational efficiency and competitiveness of state-owned enterprises; create favourable conditions and remove bottlenecks for private enterprises to develop, he stressed. The Party chief noted that Gia Lai must effectively perform the three national target programmes on new-style rural area building, sustainable poverty reduction, and socio-economic development in ethnic minority-inhabited and mountainous areas; swiftly eliminate all temporary and dilapidated houses; pay heed to preserving traditional culture values of ethnic groups; and increase investment in developing culture, education and health care; and improving social security system. He also highlighted the importance of strengthening and consolidating national defence, security, and foreign affairs in the province, saying that this as a critical and regular task. Economic development should be closely linked with ensuring national security and defence, safeguarding the country's sovereignty, territorial integrity, and border security; effectively preventing smuggling, transnational crime and infiltration activities; raising vigilance against sabotage schemes of hostile and reactionary forces; and strengthening the protection of internal political security, religious security, economic security, cybersecurity, state secrets, the Party leader said. He expressed his belief that Gia Lai will make more breakthroughs in socio-economic development, laying a solid foundation for its rapid, sustainable, and comprehensive development in the coming years, moving forward with the nation into a new era of development and prosperity. On this occasion, the Party chief presented a healthcare station worth 5 billion VND (nearly 197,000 USD) to Glar commune in Dak Doa district, which is expected to help improve the quality of health care for local people./.