(VOVworld) - On the occasion of the New Year, State President Truong Tan Sang had an interview with reporters in which he highlighted Vietnamese people’s achievements in 2012, especially in external relations affairs. The President underlined the country’s major tasks this year emphasizing on the importance of economic restructuring and international integration.

President Truong Tan Sang said the 11^th National Party Congress affirmed Vietnam as a reliable friend and partner of the international community in the name of peace, cooperation, and mutually beneficial development. Vietnam has integrated comprehensively including in economic, politics and external relations affairs. By implementing a correct foreign policy, Vietnam has won great support and trust from many countries around the world and its prestige in the international arena has also been improved. President Truong Tan Sang said: “2012 was an exciting year of external relations activities. More than 30 delegations composed of high-ranking officials across the world, visited Vietnam. Vietnam drew attention from Asian, African, Latin American and European countries, who were very interested in expanding cooperation with Vietnam in the long time. These are the favorable bilateral and multilateral relations for Vietnam”.

According to the President, Vietnam’s openness and democracy were widely promoted in the public, society, and in Party, State, National Assembly’s agencies last year. The President said that institution reform, and improvement of human resources and infrastructures played an important role in the country’s international integration. Mr. Sang stressed the need to pay more attention to raising the international competitiveness of enterprises. Once changes to the 1992 Constitutions approved by the National Assembly later this year, a series of legal documents will be issued to fine tune the mechanism for the socialist-oriented market economy. The President said a lot of work need to be done to make the international integration a success. “We are determined to restructure the economy to ensure a more sustainable and effective economic growth thus realizing the goal to developing Vietnam into an industrialized country by 2020. Over the last 2 years, and even in 2013, we have been restructuring the economy and achieved a lower economic growth, however we have to change the quality of the economic growth to prepare for further sustainable development in the coming period”, said President Sang.

The President expressed his hope that people all over the country will exert further efforts to achieve the goals of industrialization and modernization and particularly this year’s targets thus creating a prerequisite for the country to develop sustainably in the future.