In an interview with the People’s Army Newspaper’s reporter on the occasion of the 78th founding anniversary of the General Department of Defense Industry (GDDI) (September 15, 1945 - 2023), Gen. Hung gave a clear explanation about the importance of human resources in the defense industry sector.
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Lt. Gen. Nguyen Manh Hung |
He said that in the defense industry sector, researching, manufacturing, and producing weapons and technical equipment that directly serve training and combat readiness work are the main tasks. Such special types of goods require high precision and become extremely dangerous in case of carelessness.
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Lt. Gen. Nguyen Manh Hung talks to cadres and engineers of Factory Z129 under the GDDI. |
The GDDI leader stressed that materiel is an extremely important factor in creating a military’s strength and has great impacts on the results of a war, life of troops in the field. Therefore, every party member exerts all-out efforts to produce weapons and technical equipment that have more advanced techno-tactical features than the others. That is why this race never ends.
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Mastering new equipment at Factory Z113 |
He pointed out the fact that if one country could not research and produce their own materials, they would always depend on imported ones and be at a disadvantage. In addition, the enemy will clearly know the capabilities and weaknesses of the imported weapons and technical equipment, from which they will have ways to suppress and even neutralize them. Actually, countries just sell weapons and always keep technological secrets, do not sell or transfer all technologies to other countries. Additionally, the cost of buying, maintaining, and repairing imported materials is really high.
For the above reasons, every single country and military strives to be autonomous in defense industry in order to self-research and self-produce materiel according to the conditions, environment, and combat requirements of the armed forces. To this end, the first requirement is to have a contingent of good cadres, experts, and technicians and to mobilize high-quality human resources for the defense industry sector to produce different kinds of cutting-edge materiel that are able to suppress those of the enemy. This is extremely important to building a powerful military with a strong defense posture. Without good human resources in the defense industry, there is no autonomy in the defense industry.
According to Gen. Hung, right after the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, President Ho Chi Minh signed a decree on setting up a Military Weaponry Office under the Ministry of National Defense, the GDDI’s predecessor, on September 15, 1945, and paid attention to attracting talents in weapon research and manufacturing.
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Leaders of the GDDI and Ministry of National Defense’s agencies inspect models in a unit. |
In 1946, Uncle Ho invited engineer Tran Dai Nghia (birth-name Pham Quang Le) who was good at military weapons and had just returned from France, and assigned him as Director of the Department of Military Weaponry in charge of researching and producing weapons to serve the national resistance war.
The great contribution of Maj. Gen., Prof., Academician, and Labor Hero Tran Dai Nghia to the development of the military weaponry sector (present defense industry sector) in particular and the national salvation cause and resistance wars in general proved Uncle Ho's wise vision and his methods of using and promoting talents.
In the development of the revolution, the Party, State, and military have always paid due attention to developing defense industry and given priority to promoting the human resources of this industry. The human resources in the defense industry sector have developed in quality and quantity. However, they have still struggled with difficulties and challenges posed by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
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Workers of Factory Z117 operate an automatic equipment. |
Gen. Hung said that it is not easy to attract adequate, high quality human resources for the defense industry sector because of salaries and remuneration policies, strict military discipline, among others.
Therefore, to draw more talents for the defense industry, the GDDI will strive to make breakthroughs in building the high quality human resources, with priority given to employing high quality employees who could take a leading and orienting role and are capable of working in international environment in defense industry field, and making good policies for talents to encourage them to make further contribution.
With talented staff, the defense industry could be able to develop in the direction of "pro-activeness, self-reliance, dual-use, and modernity," promoting internal strength to become the spearhead of the national industry to meet the task requirements of defending the Fatherland and making important contribution to national socio-economic development.
Translated by Mai Huong