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HANOI, Vietnam
March 7, 2002(AP) — Vietnam's ruling Communist Party has decided
to formally allow its members to be capitalists, a sharp break from its
previous official stance that barred members from engaging in private
business activities, a senior party official said Tuesday.
"They
can have their own private businesses as long they are good businesspeople,
know how to become rich legally, and also draw other people along to become
rich," said Nguyen Duc Trieu, a member of the Central Party Committee
who is also chairman of the Vietnam Farmers Association.
The decision
was reached during a 13-day meeting of the Vietnam Communist Party's Fifth
Plenum that ended Saturday, he said.
Trieu said
they just came up with a general policy, and that detailed guidelines
will be introduced
later.
Vietnam has
always officially prohibited Communist Party members from running or owning
private businesses, but in reality the ban has not been fully enforced.
While more
than 35,000 new companies have been established in the two years since
the passage of an Enterprise Law — more than the number registered
between 1994 and 1999 — the number of private businesses directly
held by party members remains small, Trieu said.
The 13-day
meeting was convened to discuss the role of the country's private sector,
reflecting the growing importance of that sector in an economy once dominated
by state-owned enterprises.
Hoang Van
Dung, general secretary of Vietnam Chamber of Commerce & Industry,
said the Communist Party has realized that private enterprises play "the
core role in the country's economic
development."
"The
state will control a few key industries and tax collection, while it should
leave doing business to private hands," Dung said.
Vu Duy Thai,
chairman of Hanoi's Industry & Commerce Association, said the plenum's
decision to support the private sector reflected public sentiment, which
wanted the party to recognize the legitimacy of private enterprise.
At present,
domestic private enterprises generate nearly half of the country's gross
domestic product and employ 77% of Vietnam's work force. The state-owned
sector, which includes agriculture cooperatives, generates 40% of GDP
and 18% of the jobs. Foreign-invested enterprises
account for the remainder.
Vietnam's
Communist neighbor, China, decided earlier to allow entrepreneurs to join
its Communist Party.
Reported
by the Associated Press, Copyright, the Associated Press
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