COMMUNIST Party General Secretary Do Muoi has launched a drive for capital while calling for more dynamic state control of the economy and an end to new 'consumerism'.
It comes ahead of a congress in June - the first in five years - that will set future reforms and may precede a government shake-up.
Reports in recent days in official and semi-official papers have given the clearest indications yet of the 78-year-old leader's thinking.
'If we do not pay attention to the state economic sector and to co-operatives and if we do not control joint ventures, we cannot have socialism,' Mr Muoi reportedly told officials recently.
'As Lenin once taught we are not afraid of capitalist enterprises but of not being able to supervise and control them,' he said.
Mr Muoi re-affirmed the state's role in change and demanded a greater pace of 'modernisation and industrialisation'. He warned against Vietnam becoming a 'wage-earner for capitalists'.
