A senior Vietnamese economic expert said it is necessary to increase the number of businesspeople in the list of 13th National Assembly deputies at a time when economic development is considered a particularly important task.

Prof. Truong Cong Phu, Chairman of the Economic Consultancy Council under the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee, stressed that in recent NA tenures, deputies who are businesspeople have made remarkable contributions to building policies and legal documents on economics.

“These people will help build the system of law and better implement the NA’s supervision task because they themselves are engaging in production and business,” he said.

However, the rate of NA deputies who are entrepreneurs fell from 5 percent in the 11th NA to 3.2 percent in the following tenure, he added.

Yet, he added, more businesspeople are expected to become NA deputies as in the official list of 827 candidates to the 13th National Assembly, there are around 100 businesspeople, accounting for over 12 percent.

They include leaders of State-owned and private businesses at both central and local levels, notably Dang Thanh Tam, Chairman of the Saigon Invest Group (SGI), who has recorded as one of the “rich” on the Vietnamese stock market for many years.

The presence of Tam becomes more special when his sister, Dang Thi Hoang Yen, Chairwoman of the Tan Duc Investment Joint Stock Company, is also named in the list of NA candidates. If both are elected, they will be the first sibling entrepreneursto join a NA tenure.

There are also representatives of other large enterprises, including Dinh La Thang, Chairman of the Vietnam National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam); Pham Huy Hung, Chairman of the Vietnam Bank for Industry and Trade (Vietinbank); and Le Kien Thanh, Chairman of the HCM City-based Thai Minh Food Joint Stock Company.

The Vietnam Coal and Minerals Industries Group (Vinacomin) alone put up three male candidates while the Ha Nam Technical Infrastructure Construction and Development JSC norminated three female employees as candidates to the elections./.