The New Nation - Internet Edition

AP, Hanoi

Former Vietnamese Prime Minister Vo Van Kiet, an economic reformer who led the Communist nation away from poverty and isolation and backed the normalization of ties with the United States, died Wednesday. He was 85.

Kiet, who was prime minister from 1991 to 1997, died in a Singapore hospital, where he was taken Saturday after suffering a stroke, government officials said.

His body was to be transported later Wednesday to Ho Chi Minh City, the city in southern Vietnam where he held a number of top Communist Party and government posts. Born into a peasant family in southern Vinh Long province on Nov. 23, 1922, Kiet fought the French and Americans for almost four decades, joining Communist revolutionary forces at the age of 16. As prime minister, Kiet helped craft policies that attracted billions of dollars in foreign investment, vastly expanded trade and enabled the economy to grow at an annual rate of better than 8 percent. Impatient with Communist Party functionaries trying to protect their own turf, Kiet argued that the party could only stay in power if it loosened its tight hold over the government and business, allowing them to become more efficient.