Dung, Nguyen Tan [key], 1949–, Vietnamese political leader. Educated in Vietnam, he received a bachelor's degree in law. A career security officer, Dung joined the Vietnamese Communist party in 1967 and rose through the party ranks to become (1996) a member of its politburo. He was (1995–96) Vietnam's deputy interior minister and an officer (1997–98) of the national bank. He became a deputy prime minister in 1997 and first deputy prime minister in 2006. Later that year he was named prime minister, and in 2007 the National Assembly confirmed him for a five-year term; he was reappointed in 2011. The youngest prime minister since Vietnamese unification (1975), Dung was a pragmatic economic reformer who encouraged foreign investment and oversaw economic growth, but also was accused by conservatives of economic mismanagement because of rising public debt and other problems. In 2016 he unsuccessfully challenged the incumbent and more conservative Nguyen Phu Trong for the party leadership and was not reelected to the politburo.
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