PM Nguyen Tan Dung admitted to bureaucratic management at the Trade Counsellor Conference recently held in Hanoi after hearing from local businesses that expressed their difficulties during export activities.

 PM Nguyen Tan Dung gave speech at the Trade Counsellor Conference held on February 26 in Hanoi

"I’m very sorry for my bureaucratic management," Dung told the conference. "If I heard about your problems earlier, I could have helped resolve them.”

Self-criticism is a rare event among senior political leaders.

PM Nguyen Tan Dung will leave his post in some months after 10 years leading the government following the 12th National Party Congress.

Looking back at his two terms, the PM has faced numerous challenges, “I had many difficult tasks to deal with when taking my post ten years ago, including the global economic crisis, the country's slow recovery, and many other issues globally, such as terrorism, wars and territorial disputes which have directly affected the country”.

"I myself met Bush to discuss dragon fruit exports, I met Obama to talk about the US catfish inspections," Dung explained at the conference. "I also had a meeting with the South Korea prime minister to talk about our coconuts, the export of our litchis to Australia, and mangos to Japan. A booming economy supports diplomacy."

PM Nguyen Tan Dung once said "It's difficult to talk about other issues if we can’t develop our economy. Our country can only be strong if our people are rich. And we’ll look different when we become rich."

However, when being asked for a self-assessment, PM Nguyen Tan Dung only chose the term qualified when offered excellent, good, qualified, and failed as description for his term of office.

"I told the Politburo that I would not feel comfortable choosing excellent or good for me," he said. "I don’t really even see myself as entirely qualified."