Northern Power Corporation: Party Building in Focus

As the largest electricity distributor affiliated to the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) with over 26,000 employees working in 27 northern provinces and cities, the Party Committee of the Northern Power Corporation (NPC) always promotes its leadership roles in all activities and supports the corporation to complete business plans and tasks. On the occasion the Politburo issued the Resolution No. 09-NQ/TW on building and promoting the roles of Vietnamese entrepreneurs in the period of accelerating industrialisation, modernisation and international integration, the Vietnam Business Forum has an interview with Mr Nguyen Phuc Vinh, Chief Executive Officer of NPC. Ngo Khuyen and Pham Thi Thinh report.

 

As the economy slowed down, NPC faced numerous difficulties but it managed to maintained annual growth of 13-15 percent. This outcome is firstly attributed to the pioneering role of the Party member contingent of the corporation. The NPC Party Committee, set up in 1969, always completes all assigned tasks.

 

In the latest three years, the Party Committee has effectively fostered political and ideological education and respected operating regimes. It has resolutions for quarterly, biannual and annual operations, and points out shortcomings and weaknesses in order to draw experience and overcome. It also guides its subordinate units to build, strengthen and improve the quality of Party activities closely attached to the “Studying and following Ho Chi Minh’s exemplary morale” campaign. It also frequently enhances inspection and supervision over its subordinates.

 

The NPC Party Committee always upholds the principles of centralism, democracy, collective leadership and individual accountability; promotes the spirit of self-criticism and criticism; resolutely treats Party cadres in breach of the Party disciplines. Therefore, Party members always determine their vanguard roles in all movements.

 

The Party Committee also works closely and consistently with the Board of Directors of the corporation, and creates a favourable environment for the Trade Union, the Youth Union, and the Women's Union to perform their activities. With encouraging rewards, all employees actively join emulative movements launched by the Party Committee.

 

In addition, the Party Committee closely keeps in touch with superior Party Committees to address new issues and problems and instructs government units and collective organisations to promote humanitarian, charitable, thanking and social activities.

 

As regards human resource development, basing on the power grid development, the corporation annually assigns its subordinate units to recruit new employees to meet production and business activities. In the past three years, the NPC workforce has been expanded rapidly. The corporation had 21,059 employees in 2009, 25,998 employees in 2010 and 26,665 employees in 2011. Besides, NPC invests both time and money for employees. It sends its employees to training courses in the country and in foreign nations. In 2011 alone, NPC spent VND48 billion to provide professional training for over 400 employees and political argument training for 332 people. Hence, NPC has a very well-trained workforce, with over 94 percent being trained. The corporation now has two doctors, 158 masters, 7,472 university graduates, 6,677 college graduates and 10,886 intermediate technical workers.

 

Besides, the Party Committee focuses on developing young Party members. At the start of every year, it sets the target to admit new members. The process of admitting new members is closely carried out in accordance with the Party Charter. Over the past three years, the NPC Party Committee has admitted 104 new Party members, most of who are aged 27-35 and graduated from university. With this result, in 2011, the NPC Party Committee was praised by the Hanoi Industrial Party Committee for their member development.

 

In the process of national reform and international economic integration, contributions of entrepreneurs and business community to the country are huge. The Resolution 09-NQ/TW defines that “Enterprises of all economic sectors and the entrepreneur force in Vietnam have been continuously growing and actively contributing to the realisation of socioeconomic development strategies, job generation, social security and poverty alleviation." The Resolution 09-NQ/TW clearly specifies that the Party’s standpoints on the generation of fair, convenient production and business environment for businesspeople. It also favours the formation of large-scaled companies with high effectiveness and competitiveness. The Resolution 09-NQ/TW also mentions State-owned enterprise restructuring, with emphasis placed on economic groups, corporations and banks. Interestingly, the Resolution allows the pilot admission of private business owners to the Party, facilitating them to step on political ladder.

 

To realise this Resolution, the Party committees of all levels are responsible for organising training courses to inform members of its contents and spirits. Besides, the National Assembly, the Government, and administrative agencies supplement legal documents, build suitable policy mechanism, and introduce incentives to enterprises and entrepreneurs in the process of international integration process.