Former Deputy PM Vu Khoan passes away

Vietnam’s former Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan died on Wednesday morning at the age of 86, after a period of illness at the 108 Military Central Hospital in Hanoi.

The memorial services and burial ceremony for the late Deputy PM, also former Secretary of the Party Central Committee, will be announced later, the country’s Central Committee on Health Care for Senior Governmental Officials said in a release.

Khoan was born in October 1937 in Hanoi’s Phu Xuyen district, and was a member of the Party Central Committee in the 7th, 8th, and 9th tenures; Secretary of the Party Central Committee in the 9th term; member of the National Assembly in the 11th and 12th tenures; and Deputy Prime Minister from August 2002 to June 2006.

Khoan also held many leading positions, including Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (1990), Minister of Trade (2000), Deputy Prime Minister in charge of foreign economic relations, and Chairman of the National Committee on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation - APEC (2002). He retired in 2007.

The late senior official was honored with many noble titles by Vietnam’s Party, State, and Government, including the first-class Independence Order, first-class Labor Order, and 60 Years Party Membership Badge. He was also awarded the former Soviet Union’s Order of Friendship of Peoples, Laos’ first-class Freedom Order, and Japan’s Order of the Rising Sun.