Phan Văn Khải (; 25 December 1933 – 17 March 2018) was a Vietnamese politician who served as the fifth

Prime Minister of Vietnam The prime minister of Vietnam () is the head of government of Vietnam who presides over the meetings of the Government (formerly the Council of Ministers). The prime minister directs the work of government members, and may propose deputy prime ...

from 25 September 1997 until his resignation on 27 June 2006. He was considered to be a technocratic, innovative and benevolent leader. He was born in the countryside of Củ Chi, Ho Chi Minh City, in a family with a tradition of patriotism and fighting foreign invaders. Khải had a patriotic heart from a very early age and worked through two wars against France and the United States. Phan Văn Khải took office as prime minister on 25 September 1997. Following the path of his predecessor

Võ Văn Kiệt Võ Văn Kiệt (; 23 November 1922 – 11 June 2008"E ...

, Khải promoted extensive international integration and led

Vietnam Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV), is a country at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of about and a population of over 100 million, making it the world's List of countries and depende ...

to overcome the

1997 Asian Financial Crisis The 1997 Asian financial crisis gripped much of East Asia, East and Southeast Asia during the late 1990s. The crisis began in Thailand in July 1997 before spreading to several other countries with a ripple effect, raising fears of a worldwide eco ...

. He had a high level of expertise in economic management and was more open-minded than his predecessors and supported Vietnam's accession to the

WTO The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland that regulates and facilitates international trade. Governments use the organization to establish, revise, and enforce the rules that g ...

. Due to failure to resolve the corruption situation, on 27 June 2006, Khải, together with President Trần Đức Lương and Chairman of the National Assembly Nguyễn Văn An, voluntarily submitted a resignation letter before finishing their term.

Life and career

Phan Văn Khải was born on 25 December 1934 in Tan Thong Hoi commune, Củ Chi District, Saigon in French Indochina. Already during his youth he worked in revolutionary organizations. After the end of the

first Indochina War The First Indochina War (generally known as the Indochina War in France, and as the Anti-French Resistance War in Vietnam, and alternatively internationally as the French-Indochina War) was fought between French Fourth Republic, France and Việ ...

and the subsequent partition of the country, Pham Van Khai took the opportunity to emigrate to

North Vietnam North Vietnam, officially the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV; ; VNDCCH), was a country in Southeast Asia from 1945 to 1976, with sovereignty fully recognized in 1954 Geneva Conference, 1954. A member of the communist Eastern Bloc, it o ...

.Bruce Lockhart, William J. Duiker : ''Historical Dictionary of Vietnam'', 3. Auflage, Oxford, 2006, s. 311–312 Phan Văn Khải joined the revolution in 1947 and became member of the

Communist Party of Vietnam The Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) is the founding and sole legal party of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. Founded in 1930 by Hồ Chí Minh, the CPV became the ruling party of North Vietnam in 1954 and then all of Vietnam after the col ...

on 15 July 1959. From 1954 to 1959, he studied and worked on land reform in

, he then studied languages, at the University of Economics in Moscow

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

, until 1965. After the war Phan Văn Khải was temporarily mayor of Ho Chi Minh City. From September 24, 1997 to June 24, 2006, he served as Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam. He became the first Prime Minister of Vietnam to visit United States, meeting with President

George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...

. On June 24, 2006, he announced his resignation, along with President Trần Đức Lương. In the period from 15 December 1998 to 5 November 2001 he also served as chairman of

ASEAN The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, commonly abbreviated as ASEAN, is a regional grouping of 10 states in Southeast Asia "that aims to promote economic and security cooperation among its ten members." Together, its member states r ...

. Phan Văn Khải was considered as a moderate reformer who acted in support of the country's economic opening within the political range of Vietnam. He died on 17 March 2018 at his home in

Ho Chi Minh City Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) ('','' TP.HCM; ), commonly known as Saigon (; ), is the most populous city in Vietnam with a population of around 14 million in 2025. The city's geography is defined by rivers and canals, of which the largest is Saigo ...

Prime Minister (1997–2006)

Phan Van Khai is considered a technocratic leader and has more professional capacity in economic management than his predecessors. He is the first Prime Minister of Vietnam to be trained professionally. He has an in-depth understanding of the field of macroeconomic management and also has a deeper understanding of the market economy than previous and current leaders at that time.

Promoting private economic development

Before the period when he took over as prime minister, Vietnam's economy was struggling to cope with the difficulties and challenges of the times, especially the fierce ideological conflicts when the leaders in the Party were still in power. Many doubts and distinctions between state-owned enterprises and private enterprises. It is these different viewpoints that have negatively affected Vietnam's reform and opening-up process. In that context, Phan Văn Khải made great efforts to lobby the Politburo to change its view on the private economy and self-employment. He made a historic contribution by presenting the 1999 Enterprise Law to the National Assembly. The law has liberated the private economy. As head of the Government, he issued a series of important decisions, abolishing many licenses (Khải signed a decision to cancel 268/560-580 sub-licenses), and administrative procedures. cumbersome policies to create favorable conditions for the private economy to have opportunities to develop, those policies have also contributed to protecting healthy and fair competition between state-owned enterprises and

private enterprise A privately held company (or simply a private company) is a company whose Stock, shares and related rights or obligations are not offered for public subscription or publicly negotiated in their respective listed markets. Instead, the Private equi ...

. Therefore, during his 9-year term, the private economy has had a strong rise, a series of non-state-owned companies, enterprises, and factories have gradually dominated the market and made the consumer market stronger. Domestic consumption is increasingly vibrant.

Leading Vietnam out of the economic crisis

In the early stages of Khải's term as prime minister, the regional economic situation was very unstable, the 1997 Asian financial crisis had a strong impact on the Vietnamese economy. Due to the impact of the crisis, Vietnam's economic growth was at a high level in the period 1995–1997, but in 1998 it only increased by 5.76%, in 1999 it only increased by 4.77%. Registered foreign direct investment capital in 1995 reached over 6.9 billion USD, in 1996 it reached nearly 10.2 billion USD, in 1997 it was nearly 5.6 billion USD, in 1998 it was nearly 5.1 billion USD, In 1999, it was nearly 2.6 billion USD. Inflation if in 1996 was at 4.5%, in 1997 at 3.6%, then in 1998 it was at 9.2%. If the USD price decreased by 0.6% in 1995, increased by 1.2% in 1996, then increased by 14.2% in 1997, increased by 9.6% in 1998, etc. The growth rate of export turnover in 1996 was at 33 2%, in 1997 it was 26.6%, by 1998 it was only 1.9%. If imports increased by 36.6% in 1996, then in 1997 it would only increase by 4%, in 1998 it would decrease by 0.8%, and in 1999 it would only increase by 2.1%. Because the openness of Vietnam's economy is not high at this time (exports compared to GDP have only reached 30%, the currency has not been converted), because there is already

crude oil Petroleum, also known as crude oil or simply oil, is a naturally occurring, yellowish-black liquid chemical mixture found in geological formations, consisting mainly of hydrocarbons. The term ''petroleum'' refers both to naturally occurring u ...

rice Rice is a cereal grain and in its Domestication, domesticated form is the staple food of over half of the world's population, particularly in Asia and Africa. Rice is the seed of the grass species ''Oryza sativa'' (Asian rice)—or, much l ...

, export exporting in large volumes, due to proactive response from within the country, Phan Van Khai has applied these factors very successfully. He has also issued many timely decisions to combat and control and restrained the crisis from spreading. As a result, not only was Vietnam not caught up in this storm of crisis, but in the following years, in the period 2001–2006, the economy prospered and inflation decreased. Controlled at a low level, the growth rate was high (over 8%/year) and kept stable for many years, causing the average economic growth rate of Vietnam during his time as prime minister to reach more than 7.1 per year.

Promoting deep integration processes

Khải is considered a leader with a moderate and progressive ideology. He has inherited and promoted many policies and strong innovative thinking of previous Prime Minister

Võ Văn Kiệt Võ Văn Kiệt (; 23 November 1922 – 11 June 2008"E ...

. Although Vietnam officially joined the WTO not during his time in power, during his term, it was Khải and Advisor Vo Van Kiet who were the strongest supporters of the negotiation process. negotiations to join the

, in fact, all the most difficult and difficult conditions and preparation procedures for this event were resolved by Khải before handing over the government. to his successor Nguyễn Tấn Dũng.

Official trips

In his role as Prime Minister of Vietnam, Khải has made many official visits for the first time to many countries, especially Western countries such as

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... but most notable is his trip to the United States as a leader of a unified Vietnam, the first Vietnamese Prime Minister to make a trip to the United States. historic official visit to

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

from 20 June to 25 June 2005. This trip marked a new milestone in the relationship between the two countries, especially in the economic field, many large contracts were signed. On 21 June 2005, Khải and

President of United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forc ...

had a very successful meeting. The two leaders overcame the obstacles of cultural differences, war legacy issues, as well as different approaches to some sensitive issues.Chuyến thăm Mỹ lịch sử của nguyên Thủ tướng Phan Văn Khải
Thái An. Vietnamnet Sunday, 18 March 2018 , 03:05 GMT+7 The meeting (40 minutes) lasted 15 minutes longer than expected. President Bush, with a conciliatory attitude, highly appreciated Vietnam's innovation achievements. The fact that the US leader acknowledged the progress in religion and human rights in Vietnam recently, affirmed his strong support for Vietnam's accession to the WTO, and accepted the invitation to visit Vietnam in 2006 was something 10 years ago. year no one thought of. His trips have contributed to deepening international friendship and have also brought about many beneficial agreements for Vietnam.

Initiation of the Prime Minister's Advisory Committee

During Khải's term as prime minister, he officially established a separate advisory board for the Prime Minister and greatly trusted the organization that gathered many leading scientists in this field. During this period, before promulgating or deciding on any important issue, he sent documents to the consulting group for consideration before and after listening to the advice, he officially made a decision. Since then, successive prime ministers after Khải have maintained the activities of this advisory group.

Corruption problem

Although he made great efforts to prevent corruption, in general during his 9-year term, Phan Van Khai was ultimately unable to control bureaucratic corruption, which increasingly worsened. The most prominent scandal during his time as prime minister was PMU Case 18, a scandal related to corruption in the Ministry of Transport Transport (GTVT) in early 2006. This case caused a stir in public opinion in Vietnam as well as countries and organizations providing official development aid ( ODA ) for Vietnam, causing Minister of Transport Đào Đình Bình to be dismissed and Permanent Deputy Minister Nguyễn Việt Tiến to be imprisoned. Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng at the inauguration ceremony said:

''"I resolutely and fiercely fight corruption. If I cannot fight corruption, I will resign immediately"''

His quote is also related to this incident. When Khải resigned, he also apologized to the people for allowing serious corruption to take place.

Resignation

On 16 June 2006, he decided to retire from his position one year before the end of his term, after the Party Congress, at the National Assembly session (along with Trần Đức Lương, Nguyễn Văn An). This position is replaced by Nguyễn Tấn Dũng. In his closing speech, he apologized to the people for allowing serious corruption to take place: "''For serious corruption, I apologize to the people''. "''What I am concerned about is why some weaknesses in the socio-economic and public apparatus have been recognized for a long time, and many policies and measures have been proposed to overcome them, but the change is very slow, even Even if you're present, things will get worse.''"Thủ tướng Phan Văn Khải: 'Xin nhận lỗi trước đồng bào'
Việt Anh. VnExpress Friday, 16 June 2006 , 19:18 GMT+7

Personal life

His wife was Nguyễn Thị Sáu, former deputy director of Ho Chi Minh City's Planning and Investment Department. She died in 2012. According to the media, he has a son, Phan Minh Hoan, and a daughter, Phan Thi Bach Yen. Phan Văn Khải passed away on March 17, 2018, at his home in Tân Thông Hội commune, Củ Chi district, Ho Chi Minh City. The visitation was held on March 20 and 21 at the Reunification Hall and the International Conference Center in Hanoi according to national mourning protocols. The memorial service took place on March 22, after which the casket was taken by hearse for burial, following his last wishes and his family's desires.

Awards

*: **

Grand Cordon of the

Order of the Rising Sun The is a Japanese honors system, Japanese order, established in 1875 by Emperor Meiji. The Order was the first national decoration awarded by the Japanese government, created on 10 April 1875 by decree of the Council of State. The badge feat ...

(November 2006)

References

External links