Participants at the plenum held a minute of silence for Party Central Committee member and Deputy Prime Minister Le Van Thanh and victims who died in natural disasters and fires.

Addressing the opening ceremony, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong said the 8th plenum of the current Party Central Committee will review 10 years of a resolution on social policy issues and 20 years of a resolution on promoting the great national unity bloc, for a strong country, wealthy people, and a fair, democratic, and civilized society.

They will also discuss the implementation of a resolution on the national protection strategy in the new situation, personnel planning for the next Party Central Committee, and other important issues.

Participants will consider and decide on big, complex, and sensitive issues that are important to the completion of the political tasks of the 13th Central Committee from now until the end of its term, said Mr. Trong.

He underscored the need to thoroughly analyze the domestic and global situations to see the profound changes, complex and unpredictable developments and forecast future development trends to put forth timely directions and adjustments in accordance to the new situation.

“Focus should be made on clarifying the advantages, opportunities, difficulties, and challenges to take actions as early as possible and in any situations to firmly protect national independence, sovereignty, unity, and territorial integrity, the Party, State, people, and socialist regime, national interests, political security, order, social safety, and Vietnamese culture while maintaining political stability and a peaceful environment for national development,” Mr Trong said.

The plenum will last until Sunday.