Vietnam installs younger premier, pushes change
HANOI (Reuters) - Economic reformer and career security officer Nguyen Tan Dung took over on Tuesday as Vietnam Prime Minister to govern the communist-run country in a period of accelerated growth and deepening international ties.
Top of a younger generation coming to power, Dung's confirmation on Tuesday by an open session of the one-party parliament made him, at 56, the youngest prime minister since the communists unified Vietnam in 1975 at the end of the U.S. war.
Dressed in a long-sleeved white shirt and light blue tie, dark-haired bespectacled Dung told deputies that he wanted to help "bring our country out of backwardness and march forward together with other countries."
Corruption dogs the ruling Communist Party and in Dung's first speech to the assembly as premier he confirmed replacement of the transport minister, whose agency was caught in a multi-million dollar graft scandal earlier this year.
Other changes such as foreign affairs, defense and finance will be made later this week as part of a government reshuffle.
High-profile Dung, groomed for the job over eight years as deputy prime minister to outgoing Phan Van Khai, 72, spoke of the need to "push up economic reforms, build a law-based society and an administration clean and close to the people."
He takes office with Vietnam leading Southeast Asia in economic growth, poised to join the World Trade Organization in October and balancing friendships with global powers -- its former enemies the United States and northern neighbor China.
REFORM ADVOCATE
Born in the southernmost province of Ca Mau, Dung came through party ranks as a security officer and an advocate of speeding up the 20-year-long process of economic liberalization.
Gross domestic product expanded 8.4 percent last year and was targeted at 8 percent this year. But Vietnam remains poor with per capita annual income of just $640 and most of its 83 million people make a living from agriculture.
The National Assembly also confirmed the appointment of Nguyen Minh Triet, 63, party chief in the commercial hub of Ho Chi Minh City, as the country's new president.
On Monday, Hanoi party leader Nguyen Phu Trong, 62, was chosen as chairman of the Assembly in an era of legal reforms.
The younger leaders of one of the few communist governments in the world will be on an international stage for the first time in November when Hanoi hosts the summit of the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.
Vietnam expert Thomas Vallely said Dung could prove to be the right man as the party's consensus policy-making may need to change for the country to modernize and compete globally.
"Amid impressive economic performance there is a tendency to become complacent and avoid making difficult decisions which can only result in powerful interests losing out," said Vallely, head of the Vietnam program at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"There is good reason to expect that the new government led by Nguyen Tan Dung may prove capable of providing the decisive leadership needed," Vallely said.
The government changes were decided at April's five-yearly party National Congress but were being formalized by the assembly this week. Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, 65, was re-appointed in April to a second five-year term to the most powerful post in the Vietnamese system.
