Nen, 63, received a decision Sunday to leave his seat as chief of the Party Central Office, the Communist Party's advisory agency, to join the Executive Committee and Standing Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, where he will be introduced as candidate to be its secretary for the 2020-2025 term.

The vote for Nen, a native of Tay Ninh Province that borders HCMC, will take place during the city’s four-day Party Congress on October 15-18.

Speaking at the ceremony to announce the decision, HCMC’s current Party Secretary, Nguyen Thien Nhan, said that though HCMC has been facing many difficulties and challenges, it has still maintained its position of the nation’s economic hub and locomotive.

It had achieved average economic growth of more than 7 percent annually in the past five years and contributed 26-27 percent of the country’s growth each year, he said, noting that the city’s labor productivity is 2.6 times higher than the national average.

He also said that HCMC has never has such fertile conditions for it to thrive as it has now.

The city is directing its focus towards the innovative urban area in the east, temporarily called Thu Duc City for now. As planned, this "city within city" will be formed by merging three districts of 2, 9 and Thu Duc to become a development nucleus in the future and create a foundation for HCMC to become a "smart city," a master plan it formulated in 2017.

Other targets that the city is focusing on include building good relationships with other southern localities and the central government, as well as boosting international cooperation, he said.

"These are the advantages for Nen to continue to help the city keep growing in the next term," he said.

Nhan has been HCMC’s Party chief since May 2017.

For his part, Nen said this was a "heavy task and a great challenge" for him and, therefore, he wished for continued support from the central government.

"I pledge to do my best so that HCMC will reach the targets it has set and to make myself worthy of what others before me have sacrificed, meeting the expectations of the people of the city and the nation."

Steady rise

Nen, who holds a Bachelor of Laws degree, used to work for the police department of Go Dau District in Tay Ninh and then the People’s Committee of Go Dau before 1999.

In August 1999, he became head of the Tay Ninh Provincial Party Committee's Organization Board and Chairman of the provincial People's Council.

In March 2006, he took the spot of deputy secretary of Tay Ninh’s Party Committee and chairman of the provincial People’s Committee. The council is the legislative unit and the committee is the executive branch of government in Vietnam.

In September 2010, he was voted as Party Chief of Tay Ninh.

Between July 2011 and February 2013, he was member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Head of the Steering Committee for the Central Highlands and then Deputy Head of the Propaganda Department of the Central Party Committee.

In November 2013, he was appointed Chairman of the Government Office.

In January 2016, he was elected to the Party Central Committee and then the Secretariat of the Party Central Committee. A month later, he was assigned as Chief of the Party Central Office.