Cadres hold the key to Dong Nai’s rise

The 1st session of the 16th National Assembly passed a resolution on the establishment of Dong Nai City, effective on April 30, 2026. This historic event not only realizes the long-standing aspirations of the City Party Committee, government, and people of Dong Nai but also opens a golden opportunity for the locality to make powerful breakthroughs.

Provincial leaders congratulate Nguyen Tuan Anh, Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, on receiving the decision approving the election results for the position of Vice Chairman of the Dong Nai Provincial People’s Committee for the 2026–2031 term, on April 16, 2026. Photo: Ho Thao

To realize the aspiration for development more vigorously than ever, cadres are regarded as the decisive “key” for Dong Nai’s rise.

Decisive in task execution

Tran Bien ward, located at the center of Dong Nai City, has a population of nearly 200,000, which is the largest among all wards and communes citywide.

In recent years, numerous key national and provincial projects have been implemented in Tran Bien Ward, particularly in terms of transport infrastructure, urban renewal, and the conversion of functional development spaces to help drive socio-economic growth. To meet increasingly demanding tasks, cadres with outstanding competence, innovative thinking, and the courage to think boldly, act decisively, and take responsibility for the common good have been placed in critical positions.

Ho Van Nam, Member of the City Party Standing Committee, Secretary of the Party Committee, and Chairman of the People’s Council of Tran Bien ward, said the number of projects underway in the ward is substantial, with broad impacts involving numerous households, organizations, and businesses. In 2025, the ward successfully handed over 100% of land under its authority for five major projects, including Phase 1 of the Bien Hoa-Vung Tau Expressway, Phase 1 of Huong Lo 2 Road, the functional conversion of Bien Hoa 1 Industrial Park, the central axis road section from Vo Thi Sau Street to Dang Van Tron Street, the Dong Nai riverside road, and the Dong Nai River embankment project.

One of the ward's experiences in implementing key projects is the role of leadership in providing direct, practical, and on-site guidance, rather than delegating tasks entirely to subordinates. Leaders have proactively engaged in dialogue, listened to stakeholders, and promptly addressed emerging bottlenecks, while issuing clear conclusions that define responsibilities, tasks, and timelines. This experience also shows that effective site clearance is a prerequisite for establishing the foundation and development space necessary to implement projects that make direct and important contributions to economic growth.

This spirit of decisive, creative work, marked by daring to think, act, and take responsibility, is not confined to Tran Bien ward alone, but has become visible across most agencies and units from city to grassroots levels. As workloads continue to expand and deadlines grow increasingly pressing, many agencies and units have, during peak periods, worked overtime, including weekends and holidays.

Guided by the spirit of “finishing the task, not the office hours,” Dong Nai in 2025 recorded numerous remarkable development achievements. Most notably, GRDP growth reached 9.63%. Although this did not fully meet the double-digit target set by the Provincial Party Committee (now the City Party Committee), it exceeded the Government-assigned target by 1.13 percentage points, the highest overperformance nationwide. In addition, while Dong Nai was assigned a budget revenue target of 70 trillion VND in 2025, it ultimately collected nearly 103 trillion VND for the first time.

Speaking during the April 20 group discussion at the 1st session of the 16th National Assembly regarding the establishment of Dong Nai City, Vu Hong Van, Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, and Head of the Dong Nai Provincial National Assembly Delegation (now Member of the Party Central Committee, Secretary of the City Party Committee and Head of the Dong Nai City National Assembly Delegation), emphasized that to achieve higher budget revenues and sustain double-digit growth, the roles of the Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee and the Chairman of the Provincial People’s Committee are comparable to those of a corporate board chair or chief executive officer, requiring them to direct efforts toward maximizing contributions to the State budget.

Building on these achievements, and in line with the Resolution of the 14th National Party Congress, Dong Nai has clearly recognized its historic responsibility to compete alongside Party Committees and people nationwide. It stands ready to shoulder the mission of serving as a growth pole of the country.

To fulfill that mission, Dong Nai must transition its governance model from rural administration to urban governance, while also proposing special mechanisms from the Central Government to accelerate development.

Recognizing that Dong Nai had met all required criteria, the National Assembly officially passed the resolution establishing Dong Nai City on April 24, effective on April 30, 2026.

Building high-quality cadres

Thai Bao, Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee and Head of the Organization Commission of the Dong Nai City Party Committee, said while Dong Nai possesses substantial potential and strategic advantages, these can only be transformed into concrete results when capable individuals are in place to realize them. For that reason, cadre work remains the “key to all key tasks,” and improving the quality of cadres – particularly leadership and management cadres at all levels – is a matter of exceptional strategic importance.

From July 1, 2025 until now, the Dong Nai City Party Committee has transferred and appointed more than 120 leadership cadres from city-level departments and sectors to leadership positions at commune level. At the same time, Dong Nai has directed departments and sectors to deploy and add 275 cadres and civil servants to support wards and communes.

Currently, Dong Nai’s leadership and management apparatus is large in scale and relatively diverse in structure, with nearly 7,000 leadership and management cadres at all levels. Notably, the city’s leadership team maintains a high proportion of university and postgraduate qualifications, reflecting a quality level that stands out above the overall average.

In recent years, a significant portion of leadership and management cadres has demonstrated increasing proactiveness and creativity in policy advice and task execution. Many leaders across Dong Nai’s agencies and units have introduced solutions to improve governance methods, remove difficulties for enterprises, promote infrastructure investment, and accelerate urban development with fairly good effectiveness. Awareness of digital transformation, administrative reform, and enhancing governance efficiency has also steadily improved, forming an essential foundation for Dong Nai’s continued path toward modern and sustainable development.

To further strengthen leadership and management capacity at all levels in Dong Nai to meet the demands of rapid and sustainable development in the new era, the strategic direction of the standing members and the Standing Board of the Dong Nai City Party Committee is to reinforce political mettle, public-service ethics, and exemplary responsibility among cadres. When political courage and ethical standards are firmly consolidated, leadership teams will be capable of addressing increasingly complex challenges while ensuring that rapid development does not deviate from strategic direction or erode social trust.

At the same time, Dong Nai aims to vigorously reform planning, training, development, and utilization of cadres in a strategic, long-term direction; strengthen modern governance capacity; accelerate digital transformation in leadership and administration; and build a leadership culture rooted in integrity, closeness to the people, and service effectiveness.

When cadre work is carried out methodically and strategically, it will create a leadership team with sufficient depth, resilience, and capability to guide Dong Nai City toward sustainable development.

In the context of accelerated national industrialization, modernization, and deep international integration – particularly as Dong Nai now plays a driving role in the southern key economic region and has officially become a city – building a contingent of cadres with strong political courage, exemplary moral character, innovative thinking, and effective governance capacity has become an urgent task. This, ultimately, is the important condition for Dong Nai to fully leverage its potential and advantages, successfully achieve socio-economic development goals, and make increasingly significant contributions to the nation’s broader development.

Dr. Dinh Ngoc Quy, Deputy Director of the Institute of Ho Chi Minh

and Party leaders under the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics

By Phuong Hang – Translated by Minh Hong, Thu Ha