Vietnam minister says president's resignation has not affected policies

WASHINGTON — Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son said on Tuesday (March 26) the resignation of the communist-ruled country's second president in little over a year has not affected Hanoi's foreign and economic policies, given its collective leadership and policymaking.

Asked during a visit to the United States about Vo Van Thuong's resignation last week, Son told Washington's Brookings Institution think tank Vietnam was undergoing an anti-corruption campaign that has been welcomed by the international community and businesses.

"The resignation of the president I think in Vietnam has not affect(ed) our foreign policy as well as our own policies of economic development," he said.

"If you look at the situation in Vietnam, we have collective leadership, we have collective foreign policy. We have collective-decided economic development."

Son cited Communist Party congresses held every five years where economic development plans are set out and agreed among party leaders. "And I think (if) one or two figures in the leadership has resigned, (it) does not change this situation."

Son, who held talks in Washington on Monday with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and USAID Administrator Samantha Power, said Vietnam hopes Washington will soon recognise it as a market economy.

The US currently considers Vietnam a 'non-market economy' in import injury cases, which can lead to significantly higher anti-dumping duties and Hanoi's ambassador to Washington warned this year that maintaining the resulting punitive duties on Vietnamese goods is bad for increasingly close bilateral ties.Son said the United States and Vietnam should boost economic trade and investment co-operation after