PM Dung’s progressive leadership applauded

Vietnam’s prime minister came fifth on the list due to his relative youth and his support for reform, sustainable economic development, modernisation and anti-corruption.
“The Vietnamese people can take pride that Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung is listed fifth,” said the Australian Defence Force Academy’s Professor Carlyle A. Thayer, a renowned specialist on Vietnam’s politics and foreign relation policies.
Dung was only second behind China’s President Hu Jintao, in terms of top government leaders, as the three other men in the top five were businesspeople.
The Vietnamese PM is a technocrat and economically literate leader who was selected to carry on economic reforms, largely contributing to Vietnam’s high growth rates and assisting in world economic integration.
As what World Business commented, Thayer said Communist Party Chief Nong Duc Manh and President Nguyen Minh Triet were also reformers and modernisers “with a strong preference for privatising state-owned assets.” He said former prime ministers Vo Van Kiet and Phan Van Khai also deserved recognition for laying the foundations for Vietnam’s economic success and world integration.
However, he said, the magazine failed to acknowledge Dung’s pioneering use of the Internet to interact with ordinary citizens. Earlier in the year Dung chaired an unprecedented online talk with the public to field a range of economic and social queries.
“PM Dung’s inclusion is premature as he has been in office for only a year and the results of his leadership are yet to be seen. World Business deserves full credit for spotlighting Nguyen Tan Dung’s potential.
“In my opinion, when his term in office expires, PM Dung will have earned his place among Asia’s top progressive leaders,” said Thayer.
“Dung is not the only reformer and moderniser in Vietnam. The Vietnamese people deserve credit for letting a person of Dung’s talents rise to the top, but the contributions of the leadership team must also be acknowledged,” Thayer added.
An official at the European Commission’s Delegation to Vietnam said: “Dung has had a very promising start. He seems to be committed and it is a good thing.”
Dr Le Dang Doanh, a leading Vietnamese economist said that the prime minister’s ranking was very encouraging to Vietnamese people and he hoped that the government would continue its further improvements in economic reforms. “Dung was among the most dynamic leaders of Vietnam, but his subordinates’ capability fails short of the PM’s high expectations,” Dr Doanh remarked.
Dung, the first Vietnamese leader born after the August Revolution in 1945, was voted prime minister in June 2006 to replace his predecessor Phan Van Khai, becoming the country’s youngest leader at 57. On one of his first overseas trips as prime minister, Dung met the Pope at the Vatican in January, the first Vietnamese leader to do so.