Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visiting Son La Hydropower Plant on 8 January 2014. (Photo courtesy)
As a country leader, having held many different positions, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong has always paid attention to the development of the country's industry and energy, including the Power Industry with the core being Vietnam Electricity (EVN).
Not only providing strategic directions, the Party General Secretary also regularly directs agencies, departments, and branches to perfect the legal framework, create policy mechanisms for the energy industry in general and the power industry, in particular, to develop strongly, ensuring national energy security, serving all production and business activities and people's life. In addition, as the Party General Secretary for the 2016-2020 term, Comrade Nguyen Phu Trong visited EVN's staff and employees many times.
For the first time in 2014, near the occasion of the Year of the Horse (8 January 2014), Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visited and inspected the management and operation of Son La Hydropower Plant and the preparation for supplying power to serve the people to celebrate the Year of the Horse 2014.
Here, the Party General Secretary kindly visited and encouraged the staff and employees (S&E) operating the generators; and gave Tet gifts to Son La Hydropower Company.
With achievements in technological autonomy, many initiatives in construction, completion 3 years ahead of schedule and the important role of a multi-purpose project, not only supplying power for socio-economic development, serving the cause of industrialization and modernization of the country but also contributing to flood prevention in the rainy season and water supply in the dry season for downstream, the Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong praised the achievements that EVN and Son La Hydropower Company have achieved, and at the same time requested the collective of the staff and employees of the Electricity industry in general, Son La Hydropower Company in particular to continue to promote the achievements, promote the spirit of solidarity, creativity, promote scientific research to master the technological chain of the plant, not to let incidents happen due to subjectivity, perform well the management and operation of the Plant and reservoir, ensure absolute safety for people and equipment, etc, contributing to ensuring national energy security to successfully carry out the industrialization and modernization of the country in the new period.
In addition to professional work, the Party General Secretary also instructed the company's Board of Directors to pay attention to and take care of the material and spiritual life of staff and employees so that they can work with peace of mind and make long-term contributions to the company.
Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visiting Lai Chau Hydropower Plant on 15 July 2016. (Photo courtesy)
The second time (14 August 2014), during a working trip to Can Tho City, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, and his delegation visited and worked with the Power Generation Corporation 2 (EVNGENCO2) under EVN at the O Mon I Thermal Power Plant. Here, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong met with the staff and employees of EVNGENCO2 and encouraged the operation force of the O Mon I Thermal Power Plant.
Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong acknowledged the efforts and attempts of the collective unit and requested EVNGENCO2 to coordinate with relevant ministries, branches, and local authorities to gradually remove difficulties in production, business, investment, and construction, and soon put the O Mon Power Center into operation, contributing to increasing energy sources for socio-economic development of Can Tho and the Mekong Delta region.
The Party General Secretary also noted that EVNGENCO2 needs to strengthen mass mobilization work, promote education, and raise political awareness; propaganda, mobilize staff and employees to believe in the Party's guidelines and policies, and strictly comply with the State's policies and laws; at the same time, care for the material and spiritual life, create conditions for staffs employees to stabilize and improve the quality of life; create strong motivation for labor production to achieve increasingly high efficiency.
Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visiting and working with Power Generation Corporation 2. (Photo: EVNGENCO2)
For the third time, in 2016, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong visited the staff and employees of Lai Chau Hydropower Plant located in Nam Hang commune, Nam Nhun district, Lai Chau Province when units 1 & 2 had completed generating power. This is a national key work on the Da River, designed to include 3 units with a total installed capacity of 1,200 MW and an average power output of 4.67 billion kWh.
The Party General Secretary personally visited the hydropower dam, the generators, the operation center, etc, to visit and encourage the workers who are directly operating. Here, after listening to the report on the construction process of the plant in 6 years with the participation of more than 8,000 workers, the Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong emphasized that the completion of the Lai Chau Hydropower Plant 1 year early is an extremely great and especially important achievement; it is the result of the spirit of hard work, creativity, overcoming all difficulties and hardships of staffs and employees of Vietnam Electricity and construction units. This is also the result of the great efforts that the Party Committee, government, and people of all ethnic groups in Lai Chau and Dien Bien provinces have made in the recent past, especially in the work of migration, site clearance, and resettlement.
The Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong also instructed the staff and workers of the plant to continue to manage and operate the project in the best way to supply power to the national power system, contributing to promoting the socio-economic development of the provinces in the Northwest region and the whole country.
Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong visiting National Load Dispatch Center on 4 February 2019. (Photo courtesy)
For the fourth time, on New Year's Eve 2019 (4 February 2019), Party General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong visited and wished a happy new year to the staff and engineers on duty at the National Load Dispatch Center (A0) in Ba Dinh District, Hanoi. Here, the Party General Secretary praised the collective leadership, staff, employees, and workers of the entire Vietnam Electricity in the past time for their efforts to develop the power industry comprehensively in all fields, ensuring safe, economic, and efficient operation of the national power system.
There is a common point in visits, work, or New Year greetings, the Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong always affirms that the power industry plays a very important role in ensuring national energy security, therefore, the leaders as well as all staff and employees of EVN need to unite, continue to try, and be highly determined to complete the assigned tasks, strive to successfully complete the task of ensuring electricity for the socio-economic development of the country and the people's life, worthy of being the revolutionary power industry of Vietnam.
Although he is the highest leader of the Party and State, wherever he goes, the Party General Secretary always takes the time to visit and encourage staff and employees with a caring attitude, a soft voice, and a constant smile on his lips. The Party General Secretary always instructed the leaders of the power industry to pay attention to the material and spiritual life of the employees because only then will they try, strive, work enthusiastically, complete their professional tasks well, and contribute to the success of the industry as well as the country.
Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong is interested in the Power industry in particular and the country's energy industry in general when he directly directed the functional departments and branches to summarize and evaluate Conclusion No. 26-KL/TW, dated 24 October 2003 of the 9th Politburo on the Strategy and planning for the development of Vietnam's power industry and 10 years of implementing Resolution No. 18-NQ/TW dated 25 October 2007 of the 10th Politburo on the orientation of Vietnam's national energy development strategy to 2020, with a vision to 2050. From there, The Party's new resolution on strategic orientation for national energy development with a longer-term vision is being developed.
On 11 February 2020, on behalf of the Politburo, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong signed and issued Resolution 55-NQ/TW on the strategic orientation for Vietnam's national energy development to 2030, with a vision to 2045. It outlined the achievements of the Power sector, such as the power supply basically meeting socio-economic development requirements with increasingly improved quality. Hydropower has developed rapidly, and recently wind power and solar power have begun to develop at a high speed. Investment in building power supply infrastructure has developed strongly, which is an important condition for ensuring the security of power supply. Transmitting the national grid to almost all regions of the country, including remote areas, border areas, and islands. Energy consumption has increased significantly, and the structure of energy consumption has shifted towards industrialization. The use of energy economically and efficiently is increasingly receiving attention. The power industry has actively transformed to operate under a market mechanism; and mobilized large resources for development investment with the participation of many economic sectors, the core of which is state-owned enterprises. The energy sector has become a dynamic economic sector, making a very important contribution to promoting socio-economic development and ensuring national defense and security in many localities and the country.
In addition, the Resolution also pointed out the shortcomings that need to be overcome in the energy sector, including the electricity sector; analyzed the causes of the shortcomings and provided viewpoints, directives, targets, and visions for the new period with specific figures, solutions, and tasks. This is a guideline for ministries, branches, localities, enterprises, and the power industry to implement this Resolution.
It can be said that, despite being busy with thousands of tasks, the Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong always pays attention to each specific industry, to the workers, and more broadly, to the country and the people. The visits of the Party General Secretary will be unforgettable memories for those in the Power industry. This is also a reminder to the collective of staff and workers in the revolutionary Power industry of an outstanding, intelligent, courageous, and benevolent leader of the Vietnamese People to continue to strive to fulfill the political tasks assigned by the Party, State, and People.