Vietnam appoints first female central bank governor

By Minh Son November 12, 2020 | 01:59 am PT

Nguyen Thi Hong, the first female Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam. Photo by SBV.

Nguyen Thi Hong has become the first female Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, appointed to the position by the National Assembly Thursday morning.

With a 97.08 percent vote (467 out of 481), Hong became the State Bank of Vietnam’s (SBV) first female governor since its establishment in 1951. All 14 SBV governors to date have been men.

Hanoian Hong, 52, holds a Masters degree in Developmental Economics, and has worked for 30 years in banking.

Hong started working at the SBV in January 1991 at the Foreign Exchange Management Department. She then transferred to the banks’ Monetary Policy Department and took on the role of deputy director, and later, the director.

In August 2014, the prime minister appointed her the central bank’s Deputy Governor, and she was reappointed to the post in August 2019.

On October 20, 2020, the Communist Party Politburo had announced a decision to reassign SBV Governor Le Minh Hung, also a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam, as Chief of Office of the Party Central Committee.

The National Assembly also appointed two other new cabinet members Thursday morning, Nguyen Thanh Long as Minister of Health, and Huynh Thanh Dat as Minister of Science and Technology.