Nguyen Thi Hong has become the first female Governor of the State Bank of Vietnam, appointed to the position by the National Assembly yesterday 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, VNExpress, a local media reported.
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, Minh Son reported on the VNExpress.
The State Bank of Vietnam is a ministry-level body under the administration of the government; the bank governor is a member of the cabinet (equivalent to a minister in the cabinet). The governor is nominated by the prime minister subject to the approval of the National Assembly (Parliament). Vice governors are appointed by the prime minister on the recommendation of the governor.
Both governor and vice governors serve a 5-year term. The State Bank of Vietnam defines its principal roles as promote monetary stability and formulate monetary policies, promote institutions’ stability and supervise financial institutions, provide banking facilities and recommend economic policies to the government, provide banking facilities for the financial institutions.
The State Bank of Vietnam is also in charge of manage the country’s international reserves, print and issue banknotes, supervise all commercial banks’ activities in Vietnam. Lend the state money to the commercial banks, issue government bonds, organize bond auctions and be in charge of other roles in monetary management and foreign exchange rates.