HANOI – Vietnam’s pivotal political gathering commenced on Monday as the ruling Communist Party assembled to chart the nation’s leadership and strategic direction for the coming five years.

Approximately 1,588 delegates from various regions of Vietnam have congregated in Hanoi for the National Congress. This event, which represents the highest decision-making forum of the party, convenes every five years to elect senior leaders and establish the country’s political and economic priorities.

During the Congress, delegates will select around 200 members to join the party’s Central Committee. This committee is then responsible for appointing 17 to 19 members to the influential Politburo, all through a meticulously planned process.

In addition to deciding who will steer Vietnam until 2031, the Congress will address how the single-party system plans to navigate a more volatile global landscape. Vietnam, a significant player in Southeast Asia’s export market, aims to achieve high-income status by 2045. This goal is set against the backdrop of escalating U.S.–China tensions and a fragmented global economy.

Here’s what to anticipate from this significant event.

Power at the top

Communist Party General Secretary To Lam is expected to be confirmed to a full five-year term.

A crucial question is whether he will also move to combine the roles of party chief and state president, as many diplomats and analysts expect. This will concentrate power in an echo of the political model of China under Xi Jinping and neighboring Laos.

Vietnam has traditionally been governed through a “four pillars” system, in which the party chief, president, prime minister and National Assembly chair balance one another. Collapsing those roles would weaken that arrangement and make To Lam the most powerful leader in Vietnam in decades.

He has overseen the most ambitious round of bureaucratic and economic reforms since the late 1980s, when Vietnam liberalized its economy, including cutting tens of thousands of public-sector jobs, redrawing administrative boundaries to speed decision-making, and initiating dozens of major infrastructure projects.

Lam spent decades in the Ministry of Public Security before becoming its minister in 2016. He led the anti-corruption campaign championed by his predecessor, Nguyen Phu Trong. His rise took place while Vietnam’s Politburo lost of six of its 18 members during an anti-corruption campaign, including two former presidents and Vietnam’s parliamentary head.

His faction within the party is aligned with the ministry while the other main grouping is close to the more conservative military, said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow in the Vietnam Studies Program at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

He said conservatives were uneasy about Lam’s reform agenda, fearing the “Vietnamese socialist system could go astray,” and want conservative voices to remain within the leadership as a check on power concentration and to keep the country on a socialist path.

Where Vietnam is headed

Hanging over the Congress is a defining national ambition: whether Vietnam can transform itself into a high-income country by 2045, a goal that will shape its politics, economy and its place in the world.

Delegates will finalizes a resolution of a draft released in October that aimed for an average annual GDP growth of 10% or more from 2026 to 2030, after falling short of the 6.5% to 7.0% growth target set for the first half of the decade. The country’s 2025 GDP grew at 8%.

To do this, the draft calls for changing how the economy grows, with a focus on upgrading industry, modernizing production, and relying more on science, technology and digital tools to drive growth.

For instance, the military-run Viettel broke ground on its first semiconductor chipmaking plant in January. The project aims to begin trial production by 2027 and is part of Hanoi’s broader strategy to build high-tech capacity and reduce reliance on foreign suppliers.

The draft also describes the private sector as “one of the most important driving forces of the economy,” underscoring To Lam’s emphasis on business-led growth and a shift away from the dominance of state-owned companies in the communist country.

Giang said To Lam may seek to deepen that approach by giving large private conglomerates a greater role in major projects across Vietnam.

The document also places “foreign affairs and international integration” on the same footing as national defense and security, underscoring how dependent Vietnam’s export-driven economy is on global markets and geopolitics.

The document also elevates environmental protection to a “central” task alongside economic and social development, a notable shift in Vietnam, where rapid growth has fueled worsening air pollution and other environmental pressures.