Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has addressed public concerns regarding economic development, administrative reform, and anti-corruption and wastefulness, local newspaper Vietnam News reported Tuesday.

To accelerate economic growth in a sustainable way, it is important to intensify training skilled labor force, and applying science and technology to increase productivity, quality and competitiveness, he said at a question and answer session of the National Assembly of Vietnam on Monday.

At present, only 27 percent of the country's labor forces have undergone full training. The figure, hopefully, would touch 30 percent next year and 40 percent in 2010, he said, adding that it is still low compared with other regional countries whose skilled workers account for nearly 50 percent of their labor force.

Explaining the country's anticipated economic growth of 8.2 percent this year, down from 8.43 percent last year, Dung said it was mainly because of losses in agriculture, industry and service, which were caused by pests, diseases, natural disasters and material shortage.

As for administrative reform, the slow pace of implementing policies and related laws was affecting the process, he said, promising to accelerate reforms and focus on administrative decentralization in the coming months.

The prime minister said the government, already showing its strong commitment, will take specific measures to push back corruption and wastefulness, including strictly punishing any corrupt officials.

Source: Xinhua