Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son.

Son was born in 1962, a native of Hanoi. He has been with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for more than 30 years and has built up a wide range of experience and expertise in various fields of bilateral and multilateral diplomacy.

He graduated in 1984 from the University of Diplomacy (now the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam) and obtained a Master's degree in International Affairs from Columbia University (USA) in 1993.

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

From March 1996, he was designated as the Deputy Head and then the Head of Euro-American Committee, Chief of Office, Institute for International Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He was elected as the Deputy Director General, the Deputy Director of the Institute for International Relations, Ministry of Foreign Affairs from March 1996 to January 2000.

From March 2000 to July 2003, he was the Minister Counselor at the Embassy of Vietnam to the Republic of Singapore, before returning to the Department for Foreign Policies of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Between September 2008 to November 2009, he acted as the Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Director General of the Department for Foreign Policies. He was Vietnam’s Chief Negotiator for the Partnership and Comprehensive Cooperation Agreements (PCA) between Vietnam and the EU from November 2008 to June 2012.

Son has been a member of the 12th Central Committee of the Communist Party of Vietnam since January 2016 and a member of the National Assembly since June 2016. In February 2015, he was reappointed as First Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs after his first appointment as a Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs in November 2009. 

Thoi Su

New cabinet members unveiled

With the support of the majority of legislators, the National Assembly (NA) on April 8 morning adopted a resolution approving the Prime Minister’s proposal to appoint 12 new ministers and Government members for the 2016 – 2021 tenure.