DECISION

APPROVING THE GOVERNMENT’S PROGRAM OF ACTION FOR IMPLEMENTING THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE SIXTH PLENUM OF THE PARTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE, IXth CONGRESS, ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

THE PRIME MINISTER

Pursuant to the December 25, 2001 Law on Organization of the Government;
Pursuant to the Conclusions of the sixth plenum of the Party Central Committee, IXth Congress;
Pursuant to the Governments Resolution No. 12/2002/NQ-CP of November 8, 2002;
At the proposal of the Minister of Science and Technology,

DECIDES:

Article 1.- To issue together with this Decision the Governments Program of Action for implementing the Conclusions of the sixth Plenum of the Party Central Committee, IXth Congress, on science and technology

Article 2.- To assign the Ministry of Science and Technology to assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with the ministries, the ministerial-level agencies, the agencies attached to the Government and the Peoples Committees of the provinces and centrally-run cities in organizing the implementation of this Program of Action, and to report periodically on the implementation results to the Prime Minister.

Article 3.- This Decision takes effect 15 days after its signing.

Article 4.- The ministers, the heads of the ministerial-level agencies, the heads of the agencies attached to the Government and the presidents of the People’s Committees of the provinces and centrally-run cities shall have to implement this Decision.

THE GOVERNMENTS PROGRAM OF ACTION FOR IMPLEMENTING THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE SIXTH PLENUM OF THE PARTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE, IXth CONGRESS, ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(Issued together with the Prime Ministers Decision No. 188/2002/QD-TTg of December 31, 2002)

A. OBJECTIVES

To implement the conclusions of the sixth plenum of the Party Central Committee, IXth Congress, on science and technology from now till 2010 with a view to seeking answers in time to theoretical and practical questions, supplying scientific grounds for the formulation of the Partys and States undertakings and policies on socio-economic development, firm maintenance of security and defense; renovating and raising the technological level in the entire national economy; attaching importance to the transfer of technical advances as well as scientific and technological achievements to rural, deep-lying, remote and difficulty-hit areas; formulating and developing a number of key high-tech trends and high-tech industries; renewing the organization and management mechanisms, raising the scientific and technological management capability, creating a motive force for vigorously promoting internal strengths, improving the quality and efficiency of scientific and technological activities; developing the scientific and technological market.

B. PRINCIPAL CONTENTS

I. RENEWING THE MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATION OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL ACTIVITIES

1. Perfecting the functions, tasks and organizational structure of the apparatus of State management over science and technology along the direction of assignment and decentralization from the central to local level.

2. Scrutinizing the existing financial and economic mechanisms and policies and promulgating new ones in order to create a motive force for strongly encouraging scientific and technological innovation activities; adopting policies to step up the application of scientific and technological advances to socio-economic activities.

3. Elaborating democracy regulations in order to expand democracy, promote freedom in creation, in order to tap every potential in scientific and theoretical research. Strengthening the State management over science and technology according to law so as to ensure the good implementation of democracy regulations in parallel with enhancing the responsibility and power of the leaders of scientific and technological organizations.

4. Continuing to renew the organization and management of scientific and technological organizations along the following direction:

- Increasing autonomy and self-responsibility of scientific and technological organizations in their activities.

- The ministries shall not directly manage scientific and technological research institutions not directly serving the State management work.

- Step by step allowing scientific and technological organizations performing the technological research, application and development tasks to shift to operate according to the self-financing and business mechanisms; quickly developing scientific and technological enterprises.

5. Renewing financial mechanisms in a way suitable to the characteristics of scientific and technological activities, as well as tax and credit policies with a view to encouraging scientific and technological innovation activities and supporting the application of home-made scientific and technological advances.

6. Setting up and putting into operation the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development.

7. Building a mechanism for associating training, research, production and business; combining training with scientific research among universities, research institutes and other scientific and technological research institutions; increasing investment in scientific research for universities.

8. Working out mechanisms and policies to diversify investment capital sources for scientific and technological activities; encouraging enterprises to invest in renewing technologies; attracting foreign investment capital for scientific and technological development in order to bring the percentage of total social investment in science and technology to 1% and 1.5% of GDP by 2005 and 2010; ensuring that the annual growth rate of the State budget�s expenditures on science and technology is higher than that of State budget spending. The State shall invest in and prescribe the fund for the operation of scientific and technological organizations to carry out basic and theoretical research in social sciences and humanities, defense, security, and other key tasks as required by the Party and the State.

II. FORMING AND DEVELOPING THE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL MARKET

1. Perfecting and developing new mechanisms and policies to support and promote the development of the scientific and technological market; urging enterprises to conduct scientific research and regularly renew technologies.

2. Perfecting the legislation on intellectual property and technology transfer.

3. Establishing organizations engaged in managing and supporting the development of the technological market (technology transfer consultancy, brokerage and services).

III. DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC POTENTIALS

1. Formulating overall plannings and plans on training of scientific and technological human resources, attaching importance to the training of high-level scientific and technological personnel, sending technological and scientific personnel for training in scientifically and technologically-advanced countries.

2. Working out policies on the employment of scientific and technological personnel, particularly talented people.

3. Elaborating a decree on scientific and technological statistics and a scheme on organizing the national scientific and technological information system, and electronic libraries.

4. Working out measures to develop international cooperation on science and technology; policies to attract and efficiently use the source of official development assistance (ODA) capital for scientific and technological development; policies to attract Vietnamese intellectuals living overseas and foreign intellectuals to take part in scientific and technological development in Vietnam.

5. Elaborating mechanisms, policies and regulations on the management of high-tech parks. Accelerating the speed of building and putting into use Hoa Lac and Ho Chi Minh City high-tech parks.

6. Elaborating management regulations as well as mechanisms and policies towards key national laboratories.

IV. CONCENTRATING ON DIRECTING THE PERFORMANCE OF KEY TASKS

1. Stepping up research in the domains of social sciences and humanities; summing up practical lessons, formulating scientific grounds for the elaboration of the Partys and States undertakings and policies with a view to accelerating the national industrialization and modernization process along the socialist orientation.

2. Promoting the application and technical transfer of scientific and technological advances and achievements to agriculture and rural areas:

a/ Scrutinizing and developing mechanisms for closely integrating and connecting socio-economic programs with scientific and technological programs in service of agriculture and rural development;

b/ Elaborating mechanisms, policies and programs on transferring scientific and technological advances to rural development, focussing on programs on application of seeding, agricultural produce-preserving and processing technologies; developing agricultural, forestry and fishery promotion organizations.

c/ Formulating policies to attract scientific and technological personnel to work in rural areas.

3. Working out mechanisms and policies to prioritize the development of high technologies (information, biological, material, electronic engineering and automation technologies) and developing a number of key high-tech industries. Developing appropriate technologies and stepping up technology transfer in various mainstay industries in order to raise the quality and competitiveness of products.

C. ORGANIZATION AND DIRECTION OF IMPLEMENTATION

I. THE IDEOLOGICAL, INFORMATION AND PROPAGANDA WORK

The Ministry of Culture and Information shall continue to coordinate with the ministries, branches and localities in deploying the propagation and thorough popularization of the Government�s Program of Action for implementing the conclusions of the sixth plenum of the Party Central Committee, IXth Congress, on science and technology.

The Ministry of Science and Technology shall assume the prime responsibility and coordinate with the Ministry of Culture and Information in promoting the propagation and popularization of the application of technological and scientific achievements in various areas of production and life, particularly in the domain of agriculture and rural development.

II. IMPLEMENTATION AND IMPLEMENTATION MONITORING

The ministries, the ministerial-level agencies, the agencies attached to the Government and the Peoples Committees of the provinces and centrally-run cities shall base themselves on this Action Program of the Government (enclosed with the list of tasks prescribed in the Action Program) to:

- Concretize into their agencies� or localities programs of action for implementing the conclusions of the sixth plenum of the Party Central Committee, IXth Congress;

- Coordinate with various levels and branches in organizing the effective implementation of the Governments Program of Action;

- Regularly urge, examine and monitor the implementation of the Program of Action in the domains assigned to them for management, sum up in time, assess and draw experiences for working out solutions to problems and difficulties in the implementation process;

- Biannually report on the implementation results to the Ministry of Science and Technology for summing up and reporting the situation to the Prime Minister.

LIST OF TASKS PRESCRIBED IN THE GOVERNMENT’S PROGRAM OF ACTION FOR IMPLEMENTING THE CONCLUSIONS OF THE SIXTH PLENUM OF THE PARTY CENTRAL COMMITTEE, IXTH CONGRESS, ON SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
(Issued together with the Prime Ministers Decision No. 188/2002/QD-TTg of December 31, 2002)

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