Vietnam Adds U.S.-Educated Official to Party’s Politburo
By Bloomberg News - May 11, 2013 9:38 AM ET
Vietnam’s ruling Communist Party for the first time chose a U.S.-educated government official to join its highest decision-making body, tapping a face familiar to Western investors as it seeks to revive the economy.
Nguyen Thien Nhan, 59, a deputy prime minister who received a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Oregon, was picked at a party meeting to join the Politburo, the official Vietnam News Agency reported today. Nhan was vice-chairman of Ho Chi Minh City’s main governing body when Intel Corp. (INTC) decided to locate a $1 billion plant in the city.
“I’ve gone on road trips with him to the U.S. where he would run his own PowerPoint presentations for potential investors, and his whole approach was just world class,” said Fred Burke, Ho Chi Minh City-based managing director of the law firm Baker & McKenzie (Vietnam) Ltd., who has known Nhan for more than a decade. “He is from a new generation that has had significant international exposure.”
The Communist Party is attempting to boost an economy hampered by slow credit growth due to concern over the health of the banking system and state-owned companies. The party began a shift to a freer-market economy in 1986, and the country opened a stock exchange in 2000 and joined the World Trade Organization in 2007.
“For a younger generation of leaders, making choices such as cutting down the state sector is not going to be as difficult as it was for their predecessors,” said Zachary Abuza, a professor of political science at Simmons College in Boston, who specializes in Southeast Asia. “The leadership in Vietnam is really stuck between the state and market.”
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