Party and State leaders’ New year messages, socio economic achievements in 2011 and prospects for 2012 were front-paged in newspapers this week. Exciting celebrations of the 82^nd founding anniversary of the Communist Party of Vietnam and preparations for the traditional lunar New
Year festival received wide coverage.

Newspapers for New Year holiday. Photo: vja.org.vn

State President Truong Tan Sang stressed that 2011was a year of socio economic success. Vietnam’s international prestige was raised. Despite difficulties caused by the global economic downturn, foreign investors continued to invest in Vietnam and foreign direct investment and official development assistance for Vietnam remained high. The President called on the Party and the people to unite to cope with economic challenges, maintain socio political and national security stability, fulfill the set targets of 2012 and continue to successfully implement the five year plan until 2015.

Newspapers devoted a large proportion of their coverage to analyze last year’s socio economic achievements and prospects for this year. The Vietnam Economic Times ran a series of articles evaluating the macro economy and Vietnam’s 10 top economic achievements of 2011. According to the newspaper, Vietnam is one of the 15 leading investment markets with a long term GDP growth rate of 7.4%. The Investment newspaper ran an article titled “Ambitions for 2012” forecasting that Vietnam will achieve a GDP growth rate of between 6 and 6.5% next year, keep inflation at 9% and disburse 11 billion USD worth of FDI capital. The People daily, People’s Army, Liberated Sai gon and New Hanoi newspapers also printed socio economic forecasts for next year. According to them, Vietnam’s GDP growth rate will be between 6 and 6.5%, inflation will remain below 10%, export revenues will increase 13%, 1.6 million jobs will be created and the poverty rate will decrease by 2%.

The People daily, Liberated Saigon and New Hanoi newspapers ran editorials outlining Vietnam’s opportunities and challenges this year. The newspapers said with sufficient effort by the army and the public, including overseas Vietnamese, Vietnam will certainly fulfill its set targets.

Many newspapers carried stories about dragons as 2012 is the year of the Dragon. These featured images, legends and fables about dragons and their characters. According to Oriental concepts, the dragon is a symbol of power, sacredness and goodness.

Spring newspapers also highlighted the exciting atmosphere of Tet celebrations. The Labor newspaper praised the beauty of the Tet tradition of Ca Dong ethnic minority people in the central highlands. Ca Dong people always place an altar at home to worship President Ho Chi Minh and they prepare a feast to worship the President during Tet and for his death anniversary on September 2^nd. The People daily newspaper highlighted affection for people and soldiers on the Truong Sa islands.

Unique cultural characteristics, customs during the traditional lunar new year festival, beautiful parallel sentences and poems were widely covered in Spring newspapers. New year celebrations by overseas Vietnamese and the Party and State’s care for the poor and social beneficiaries were also highlighted.

Ngoc Anh