The Communist Party of Vietnam has always paid attention to personnel work and personnel planning. This is shown in resolutions on personnel work issued at the Party Congresses. The 11^th National Party Congress in 2011 set a general goal of thoroughly reforming personnel work, particularly improving the quality of personnel training. In the opening speech at the Party Central Committee’s 7^th conference, Party General Secretary Nguyen Phu Trong said that in order to ensure the feasibility and practicality of personnel planning and the development of officials, the selection of officials should take into account candidates’ competence, age, gender, and social background in line with the project approved at the PCC’s 6^th conference. The selection should be based on standards to ensure unanimity, compatibility, and connectivity from the central to local level. The planning should be reviewed and adjusted and the number of candidates need not be sufficient the first time. Nguyen Dinh Huong is former Deputy Head of the Party Central Committee’s Commission for Organization. "Personnel work is decisive to Vietnam’s revolutionary course in war time or in peace time. When he was alive, President Ho Chi Minh paid special attention to personnel work. In the national renewal process, Vietnam needs competent and virtuous officials. The PCC’s 7^th conference is taking a wise course in discussing personnel work.", Mr. Huong says.

Mr. Huong said the selection should be based on specific criteria. "The general criteria are virtue and talent which should be tangible. The measure of an official’s virtue and talent is their work effectiveness which should be acknowledged by the people."

Implementing the Resolution of the 11^th National Party Congress and the Resolution of the 4^th session of the PCC on some urgent current issues of Party building, the Politburo has directed the implementation of personnel planning for strategic-level positions. The Party Central Committee’s Commission for Organization and the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration have opened the 1^st course on preparing the resource of high-level officials. 5 courses are scheduled to open between now and 2015, before the 12^th National Party Congress. Professor Nguyen Trong Phuc is Vice Chairman of Project 1677 on training strategic-level officials at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics and Public Administration. "We have personnel planning at subordinate levels but don’t have planning at the strategic level. The training courses for prospective officials and personnel planning at the strategic level are essential to realizing the 4^th PCC resolution. I hope practical activities will make significant changes, identify talented and virtuous people to take on national work for the next and all following tenures.", Mr. Phuc says.

In any historical period, personnel work has always been considered an important national policy issue. The nation is seeking talented and virtuous officials handle complex issues during the national industrialization and modernization process and globalization.