Phan Văn Khải (Vietnamese: [faːn˧˧ van˧˧ xaːj˧˩] ,alias Sáu Khải; 25 December 1933 – 17 March 2018) was a Vietnamese politician who served as the fifth Prime Minister of Vietnam 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, Khải promoted extensive international integration and led Vietnam to overcome the 1997 Asian financial crisis. 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. 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.
Phan Văn Khải was born on 25 December 1933 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 and the subsequent partition of the country, Pham Van Khai took the opportunity to emigrate to North Vietnam.
Phan Văn Khải joined the revolution in 1947 and became member of the Communist Party of Vietnam on 15 July 1959.
From 1954 to 1959, he studied and worked on land reform in North Vietnam, he then studied languages, at the University of Economics in Moscow Soviet Union, 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. 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.
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.
Biographers have characterized Phan Van Khai as a technocratic leader with professional training in economic management. He is the first Prime Minister of Vietnam to hold professional training in macroeconomic management. The training is credited with giving him a greater understanding of this field and of the market economy than previous and contemporary leaders had.
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. 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 US$6.9 billion, in 1996 it reached nearly US$10.2 billion, in 1997 it was nearly US$5.6 billion, in 1998 it was nearly US$5.1 billion, In 1999, it was nearly US$2.6 billion.
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, rice, 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. 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 WTO, 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.
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 Canada, Sweden, England... 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 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 George W. Bush 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.