Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung urged the southern province of Dong Nai to act on its potential, advantages and achievements to serve rapid and sustainable development towards becoming a modern industrial locality in 2020. Addressing the province’s 10 th Party Congress for the 2015-2020 tenure on September 29, the PM pointed to shortcomings in Dong Nai such as rapid but unsustainable development, moderate growth rates and competitive edges, dropping provincial competiveness index and the application of outdated technologies. Stressing economic development as a central task, the leader asked the province to continue effectively restructuring the economy in combination with transforming growth models, targeting higher productivity, quality and competitiveness. Dong Nai was requested to attract investments in areas of its strengths or in fields of high added values like finance, banking, tourism, logistics, education-training, science and technology. Planning and management – especially urban, socio-economic infrastructure and and land use planning – should receive more attention, he said, urging the locality to fully tap its land, ecosystem and climate advantages to accelerate agricultural restructuring, looking towards a hi-tech and high added value agriculture. Provincial socio-economic development should be associated with the growth of the Southeast region, thus creating regional connectivity, particularly in infrastructure, human resources, scientific-technological development and environmental protection, he noted. PM Dung also asked Dong Nai to focus on education-training, human resource development – especially high-quality work force, vocational training and incentives for skilled workers. With its rapid and dynamic growth, Dong Nai has lured a large number of labourers across the country, he said, calling on the locality to implement policies regarding social welfare, employment and sustainable poverty reduction. Socio-economic development must be carried out in tandem with national defence and security tasks, the leader stated. He stressed the need to build a strong and pure provincial Party Committee along with administrative reform and investment environment improvement to turn Dong Nai into one of the leading localities in industrialisation and modernisation. A report presented at the congress showed that Dong Nai’s GDP increased 12 percent annually, higher than the nation’s figure, and per capita income reached nearly 3,100 USD, nearly double that of 2010 and expected to hit up to 5,800 USD in 2020. By 2020, Dong Nai is projected to have 80 percent of its communes recognised as new-style rural areas. It has set a Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) growth of 8.9 percent annually from 2015-2020 and the rate of poor households below 1 percent by 2020.-VNA