At the opening ceremony, the Vice Chairwoman of the Hanoi City’s People’s Committee, Ngo Thi Thanh Hang, said the conference was an importance chance to assess and honour the traditions and civilised values in the glorious history of the capital city and the whole nation. We should outline orientations and strategies to build Hanoi into a modern, elegant and civilised city, she said.

For his part, the Secretary of the Hanoi City’s Party Committee, Pham Quang Nghi, pointed out challenges to the capital city that need to be solved such as the fast increase in urban population, traffic jams and environmental pollution. Meanwhile, planning and planning management have not been well controlled, leading to the degradation or disappearance of the capital’s architectural heritages and unequal development of urban and suburban areas.

There remain shortcomings in the capital city’s economic efficiency and competitiveness while its internal sources and advantages have not been fully tapped, he noted.

The capital’s economic development has failed to match its potential. Its socio-cultural development has not kept pace with its economic development as well as its role and status, he added.

He said the capital city’s authorities considered the conference a chance to listen to scientists’ opinions on the city’s strengths and potential for development. He also hopes participants will put forth proposals on solutions to bring into play the values of Thang Long-Hanoi to build a strategy for sustainable development of the city in the context of rapid global change.

At the conference, UNESCO Representative in Vietnam Katherine Muller-Marin cited a recent study that was conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and reported in its UK Economic Outlook publication as saying that Hanoi is projected to be one of the world’s top two cities in terms of average real GDP growth for 2008-2025.

A total of 157 reports will be presented at the conference.

Professor, Doctor William S. Logan of Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia, who has studied about Hanoi for 20 years, said Hanoi was one of a few cities in the world having a continuing history of being the capital city of a country for over 1,000 years, which makes it different from many other foreign cities.

In his opinion, development and preserving heritages are not opposing issues. As the result, policy makers have to take planning issues into consideration and not destroy the city’s cultural values.