On behalf of the Secretariat, Standing Member of the Secretariat Tran Cam Tu signed Directive No. 04-CT/TW on March 17, 2026 on strengthening the Party’s leadership over publishing activities in the new context.
Directive No. 04-CT/TW affirms that publishing is a vital ideological domain of the Party, the State, and the people—entrusted with the mission of disseminating, promoting, consolidating, and safeguarding the Party’s ideological foundation alongside the State’s policies and laws. Beyond its political role, publishing is recognized as a cornerstone of Vietnamese culture, enriching the national knowledge base, shaping social values, guiding aesthetic standards, elevating intellectual capacity, and advancing cultural development. At its core, publishing contributes to the preservation and promotion of Vietnamese human values, reinforcing the nation’s cultural identity and collective progress.
Publishing must effectively meet the public’s needs for reading, learning, entertainment, and spiritual and cultural enjoyment. It is necessary to develop a reading culture, placing readers at the center and as the primary objective of publishing activities, and to foster reading habits within the community.
Publishing must also serve as a key instrument in education and training; it is an important part of the cultural industry, contributing to the dissemination of culture, the formation of digital content value chains and digital assets, improving economic efficiency, and contributing to the overall achievements of the national economy as well as national competitiveness.
At the same time, it serves as a gateway for expanding cultural exchange and absorbing the essence of global culture; it is an important tool of cultural diplomacy, helping to affirm and promote Vietnam’s cultural soft power on the international stage.
Contributing to enhancing Vietnam’s position and influence
Directive 04-CT/TW sets a target by 2030 to build a streamlined, strong, high-quality, and modern publishing system; to form key national publishing and media conglomerates operating across multiple platforms and products, fulfilling political, cultural, scientific-technological, and educational functions, including units responsible for strategic external affairs. Publishing activities will undergo comprehensive digital transformation, developing infrastructure, technological platforms, and digital content; prioritizing digital publications, diversifying digitization, applying artificial intelligence and big data, and developing multimedia publishing systems.
At the same time, efforts will be made to strongly promote reading culture, build digital libraries, e-book collections, and community reading spaces; invest in distribution systems for remote, mountainous, island, and ethnic minority areas; develop bilingual and ethnic-language books. International cooperation will be strengthened to bring Vietnamese books to the world and receive foreign publications; participate in copyright exchanges; introduce Vietnamese books into global university library systems; and develop electronic publishing with 100 percent of publishers participating and 80 percent of printing facilities equipped with modern technology.
By 2045, Vietnam aims to develop a strong, diverse, and modern publishing and media system that effectively meets the public’s needs for reading, learning, entertainment, and cultural enjoyment in the new era; to become a digital economic sector in which Vietnamese publishing enterprises have global reach; and to serve as a leading center for innovation, exchange, and cooperation with countries that have advanced publishing and media industries in Southeast Asia and worldwide, thereby enhancing Vietnam’s position and influence internationally.
Developing a professional, humane, and modern publishing industry
Directive 04-CT/TW calls for strengthening the Party’s leadership and the State’s management; improving legal frameworks, mechanisms, and policies; removing bottlenecks, unlocking resources, and developing digital space and the digital publishing economy. It also emphasizes building financial support mechanisms; improving copyright protection laws; strengthening the protection of authors’ rights, especially in the digital environment; and raising public awareness of intellectual property.
The Directive highlights the need to focus investment on publishing content as the core product for developing the cultural industry; expanding genres and new topics with ideological, scientific, and aesthetic value; and developing new publishing models aligned with integrated media trends and digital transformation. At the same time, it calls for building a publishing development strategy, positioning publishing products in connection with the cultural industry; expanding international cooperation across all publishing sectors; nurturing and developing reading culture among all segments of society; and implementing public-private partnership models to spread national cultural values.
Human resources are identified as a key factor. Accordingly, training programs must be reformed, and the capacity of publishing personnel—from managers to editors and technology experts—must be enhanced. Inspection, supervision, and strict handling of legal and ethical violations must be strengthened, along with efforts to prevent the misuse of cyberspace for spreading false or harmful content.
The Directive also requires the development of digital infrastructure and shared digital publishing data platforms across the entire sector; the application of artificial intelligence; diversification of digital publishing products; and encouragement of domestic technology enterprises to participate in building the digital publishing ecosystem. At the same time, it calls for promoting reading culture in society, enhancing the value of books, building reading habits and skills, and contributing to the development of a learning society and lifelong learning.
