Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son and two other high-ranking officials have been approved as Vietnam's new deputy prime ministers following a resolution passed by the lawmaking National Assembly (NA) on Monday.

The resolution was passed with 100 percent of the 432 NA delegates voting in favor the appointment proposal by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at the eighth extraordinary session of the 15th-tenure NA in Hanoi on Monday morning. 

The two other new deputy premiers are Ho Duc Phoc and Nguyen Hoa Binh, whose positions before the appointments were finance minister and chief justice of the Supreme People’s Court, respectively.

Deputy Prime Ministers Son and Phoc will continue working as foreign and finance ministers, respectively, while Deputy PM Binh had been relieved of his former post before the appointments.

Along with the two incumbent deputy premiers, Tran Hong Ha and Le Thanh Long, these new appointments have brought the number of deputies to PM Pham Minh Chinh for the 2021-26 term to five.

Deputy PM Son, 62, a member of the Central Party Committee and an NA delegate, graduated with a bachelor's degree in diplomacy in Vietnam in 1984 and earned a master's in international relations from Columbia University in the U.S. in 1993, according to the Vietnam Government Portal.

As a professional diplomat, Son has had more than 30 years of experience in foreign policy planning, international negotiations, international economics, and international relations studies.

Son began his diplomatic career in September 1987 as a researcher at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Institute for International Relations.

He later held several key positions, including director of the Foreign Policy Department and assistant to the foreign minister, before being appointed foreign minister in April 2021.

Deputy PM Phoc, 61, with a PhD in economics, is a member of the Central Party Committee and an NA delegate. 

Before becoming finance minister in April 2021, Phoc was State Auditor General in 2016 after serving as secretary of the Nghe An Province Party Committee and chairman of the Nghe An People’s Council from March 2013.

With a doctoral degree in law, Deputy PM Binh, 66, is a member of the Politburo and the Central Party Committee and an NA delegate. 

After holding various posts since 1999, he became head of the Supreme People’s Procuracy in August 2011 before being appointed chief justice of the Supreme People’s Court in April 2016.

On Monday afternoon, Party General Secretary and State President To Lam awarded the appointment decisions to the three deputy prime ministers at a ceremony held at the Presidential Palace in Hanoi, in the presence of PM Chinh, who presented congratulatory flowers to his new deputies.

The Party chief and head of state also handed the appointment decisions to new Minister of Justice Nguyen Hai Ninh and new Minister of National Resources and Environment Do Duc Duy, whose appointments were also approved by the NA on Monday.

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