Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05HANOI1065
2005-05-09 08:44:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Hanoi
Cable title:  

VIETNAM: NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OPENING

Tags:  PGOV PINR EFIN ECON ETRD VM HIV AIDS AFLU WTO 
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HANOI 001065 

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

STATE PLEASE PASS TO USTR EBRYAN
STATE ALSO FOR E, EB AND EAP/BCLTV
STATE ALSO PASS USAID FOR CHAPLIN/ANE
USDOC FOR 4430/MAC/ASIA/OPB/VLC/HPPHO

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PINR EFIN ECON ETRD VM HIV AIDS AFLU WTO
SUBJECT: VIETNAM: NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OPENING

Sensitive but Unclassified -- Please protect accordingly.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 HANOI 001065

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

STATE PLEASE PASS TO USTR EBRYAN
STATE ALSO FOR E, EB AND EAP/BCLTV
STATE ALSO PASS USAID FOR CHAPLIN/ANE
USDOC FOR 4430/MAC/ASIA/OPB/VLC/HPPHO

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PINR EFIN ECON ETRD VM HIV AIDS AFLU WTO
SUBJECT: VIETNAM: NATIONAL ASSEMBLY OPENING

Sensitive but Unclassified -- Please protect accordingly.


1. (SBU) Summary. Although WTO accession continues to be
the focus at the spring National Assembly (NA) session that
opened on May 5, the Government has yet to show the swift
actions on the legislative agenda needed to meet its
December 2005 accession target. The Government also fails
to acknowledge that HIV/AIDS is a disease rather than a
social evil spread by drug addicts and prostitutes. Other
challenges for the year are avian influenza and inflation.
End Summary.


2. (U) National Assembly Chairman Nguyen Van An opened the
legislature's spring session May 5 with remarks to the
delegates, ministers and diplomats. An identified a number
of priorities for this session: making laws, studying and
approving the budget and reviewing reports from various
government bodies. He said that the Assembly would spend
most of its time and efforts studying and passing 11 laws
and one resolution while providing comments for other 12
laws. Legislation scheduled to be passed during this
session includes the Revised Civil Code, the Law of Trade,
revisions to the Law on Customs, the Law on Joining
International Conventions, the Law on State Audits, the Law
on National Defense and revisions to the Law on Mandatory
Conscription. Among the bills the NA will discuss is the
Law on Corruption. The Government had attempted to delay
discussion of this bill until the fall NA session, but
Chairman An successfully insisted it be dealt with now.


3. (U) The NA will also issue a special resolution revising
its legislative agenda. This is intended to allow the NA to
deal with the legislation necessary for Vietnam to accede to
the WTO. Under legislative regulations, a bill must be
first discussed by the NA's core Standing Committee, then by
the full Assembly in a session, before it can be voted on in
the NA's subsequent session. Chairman An has suggested that
a special session of the Standing Committee may be assembled

concurrent to the full NA session so that bills could be
discussed by both bodies in turn, allowing them to be passed
in the NA's fall session.


4. (U) Also during this spring session, the Assembly will
study the Government's report on the results of the 2004
State budget, consider the State budget for 2005 and approve
the final accounting for the 2003 State budget. The
Assembly will also supervise the implementation of NA's
resolution on the Dung Quat oil refinery, review Standing
Committee reports, including on health care, as well as
reports from other NA Committees including the Ethnic
Peoples Committee, and from the Chief Justice of the
People's Supreme Court and from the Chief Inspector of the
People's Supreme Inspectorate. Finally the deputies will
hear reports from the Vietnam Fatherland Front on voters'
petitions and settling voters' petitions.


5. (U) Of note during this session is that the NA's often
contentious live televised questioning of Government
Ministers has been revised to allow less time for speeches
and more for direct questioning by Delegates. Further, the
NA televised live the floor debate of the Civil Code on May
6, the first time to our knowledge that an open NA debate
has been shown on television.


6. (U) The Government of Vietnam (GVN) submitted its usual
report to the National Assembly detailing its activities
over the previous year. (Standing Deputy Prime Minister
Nguyen Tan Dung did the honors, standing in for Prime
Minister Phan Van Khai who was in Australia.) A key section
was devoted to urgent preparations to join the World Trade
Organization (WTO). According to the report, negotiations
to join WTO in 2004 and the first four months of 2005 have
been carried out actively and achieved important results.
The near term will be decisive, but the workload is still
huge and complicated. The GVN is focusing on urgently
completing plans to conclude negotiations. The GVN will
intensify negotiations and stand firm on principles, but
have enough flexibility to conclude negotiations soon. The
GVN will take steps to support the negotiations through
political and foreign affairs channels. In addition, the
GVN will quickly complete drafts of laws and regulations to
facilitate international integration and WTO negotiations.
This will involve submitting 19 draft laws and three
ordinances to the National Assembly in 2005. Ten draft laws
and one draft ordinance have been included in the agenda of
the spring session. To increase the priority of domestic
preparations for accession, the Prime Minister requested
government agencies to make specific integration plans and
to intensify efforts to explain the benefits and challenges
of WTO accession to people and enterprises. In addition,
the GVN will need to continue to advance administrative
reform, make the transition to a market economy and improve
the investment environment while developing production
capacity, education and training as well as science and
technology.


7. (SBU) The report also noted other challenges, such as
containing avian influenza and dealing with its economic
damage, controlling inflation and halting the spread of
HIV/AIDS. Regrettably, the report still referred to
HIV/AIDS as a social evil spread by drug addicts and
prostitutes.


8. Comment: Although the GVN continues to say that WTO
accession is its top priority, there has been little action
on the forwarding of draft or enacted legislation to the
Working Party in Geneva. While the bilateral market access
negotiations are intensifying, it will be impossible for
Vietnam to meet its December 2005 accession target without
significant rapid progress on the legislative side. End
Comment.

MARINE