Party General Secretary To Lam at the meeting with representatives of ethnic communities in Cao Bang on January 28. Photo: VNA  

Party General Secretary To Lam met with representatives of ethnic communities in the northern province of Cao Bang on January 28 on the occasion of the 96th anniversary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (February 3), the 85th anniversary of President Ho Chi Minh’s return to the country (January 28), and the 65th anniversary of Ho Chi Minh’s revisit to Cao Bang (February 21).

General Secretary Lam extended profound emotion during his engagement with local residents, heroic Vietnamese mothers, veteran revolutionaries, respected community elders, officials, soldiers, teachers, and students.

Reflecting on January 28, 1941, he noted that it marked the moment when, after three decades abroad searching for a path to national salvation, leader Nguyen Ai Quoc, later known as Ho Chi Minh, returned to Vietnam to personally lead the revolution. Cao Bang, he said, served as a critical staging ground for that historic decision, where Ho Chi Minh relied on local ethnic communities to establish revolutionary bases. It was from these remote highlands, the light of his revolutionary thought began to spread across the country, ultimately guiding Vietnam to independence, reunification, and its present course of development.

The Vietnamese Party and the State will forever remember and deeply appreciate the immense yet silent sacrifices and contributions made by Cao Bang’s ethnic groups to the Party, President Ho Chi Minh, and the Vietnamese revolution as a whole, he asserted.

According to him, the Party Central Committee, State, Government, Vietnam Fatherland Front, socio-political organisations, and the entire political system remain committed to people-centred policies. Among the concrete measures he cited were the construction of 248 inter-level schools in border areas, the supply of tuition-free education, the expansion and consolidation of universal health insurance, accelerated efforts to eliminate makeshift and dilapidated housing in favour of safe and durable accommodation, and the unwavering spirit of “leaving no one behind” in national development.

Looking ahead, he wished that the Party Central Committee, the province, and ethnic communities would maintain unity and join effort to steadily advance Cao Bang’s development.

He called for a focus on sustainable livelihoods by linking production with quality standards, spreading cooperative models, developing border gate economy, services and tourism suited to local conditions.

On infrastructure and connectivity, he stressed the continued push for “roads to every village, electricity to every home, clean water to every household”, complemented by appropriately scaled digital infrastructure.

Regarding border security and public trust, he highlighted the role of respected community figures and village elders, in reinforcing the great national unity bloc, maintaining social safety and order, ensuring that border areas remain both secure and conducive to peaceful development, cooperation, and friendship.

Local residents, officials, teachers, and students were asked to uphold the tradition of solidarity and work with resolve to elevate Cao Bang to new levels of prosperity.

On this occasion, General Secretary Lam, together with other Party and State leaders, presented gifts to heroic Vietnamese mothers, veteran revolutionaries, Heroes of the People’s Armed Forces, those with meritorious service to the revolution, and families of five comrades who accompanied President Ho Chi Minh on his 1941 return. Gifts were also presented to the provincial Party Committee, and 50 billion VND (1.92 million USD) was granted to the province for the construction of the new Nung Tri Cao primary school./.