Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue: 'Going abroad is not just to have fun for a few days and then come back!'

“If you are effective, you can go to any country. That is your domestic and foreign affairs, why do you need to ask the Government for permission? However, you must go in a spirit of frugality and if you go, you must be effective. Going abroad is not just for fun for a few days and then returning home!”

That is the request of Politburo member, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue at the working session with the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance (VCA) this morning (August 29).

Why is the Cooperative Union weak?

At the meeting, Mr. Vo Kim Cu - Chairman of the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance - said: Currently, the country has 150,000 cooperative groups with over 2 million members. The country has about 20,062 cooperatives, accounting for about 13 million households with more than 30 million workers. There are 43 cooperative unions, of which 29 are operating effectively, many of which are very large in scale.

Mr. Vo Kim Cu frankly pointed out the limitations in the operation of the Cooperative Union, in which the State management of cooperative economy and cooperatives is not concentrated, still scattered, fragmented, and separated from the Central to the local level. The legal corridor is still narrow, the policy mechanism is not synchronous, not attractive, and not applicable to life...

In the direction of innovation of the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance, Mr. Vo Kim Cu proposed to the Government and Ministries to create conditions for the Cooperative Alliance to expand international relations, learn from experiences, expand markets, and call for financial resources for ODA projects, including refundable and non-refundable aid. At the same time, allow the Cooperative Alliance to send a number of economic research delegations to cooperate with countries such as Germany, Japan, Korea, Canada, Singapore, Indonesia, the Russian Federation, etc.

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue chaired a working session at the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance on the morning of August 29.

Assessing the activities of the Cooperative Union, Mr. Mai Xuan Hung - Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly's Economic Committee summarized in 5 words: "Very weak, weak all over".

According to Mr. Hung, the position of the Cooperative Union is very important but it has not been able to promote its role. Mr. Hung also believes that the Cooperative Union is weak partly due to the State management agency. If it was transparent from the Central to the local level, it would be much better, thereby identifying and assigning the responsibility of the leader.

Going abroad is not for… fun!

Referring to the role of the Vietnam Cooperative Alliance in developing the collective economy, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue said that building legal policies on cooperatives is very important and suggested that the Cooperative Alliance must participate and contribute to the Party and State, and at the same time must answer the question of why there are many policies and mechanisms but they are not effective and do not come into life? What needs to be amended and supplemented, what needs to be organized and implemented?

“If you are effective, you can go to any country. That is your domestic and foreign affairs, so why do you need to ask the Government for permission? However, you must go in a spirit of frugality and if you go, you must do it effectively. You cannot go abroad just to have fun for a few days and then return!” - the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized.

Regarding the organization and operation of the Cooperative Union, the Deputy Prime Minister suggested reviewing and perfecting it in the direction of innovation, streamlining, necessity and efficiency, closely following the charter. Accordingly, innovating models to shift to service provision, changing the balance by focusing on developing cooperatives linked to the market, building models to attract businesses to cooperatives, building models closely linked to real life...

To solve the internal problems of the Cooperative Union, Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue requested the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Planning and Investment to help the Government and the Prime Minister to soon complete and strengthen the State's capacity in the collective economy, with the core being cooperatives; to soon help the Government consolidate and complete the organizational apparatus, and by the end of 2016 and the beginning of 2017, the situation of lack of unity and clarity must be immediately ended.

“The important thing is the organizational structure. There is a saying, “Give me an organization and I will turn things around.” Therefore, when the organizational structure is good, the operation will be good. The Government will fully support and create favorable conditions for the Cooperative Union to operate and develop according to the provisions of the Law,” the Deputy Prime Minister affirmed.

According to Dan Tri