Vietnam to hold two-day State funeral for Party General Secretary

A special communiqué released on July 20 says the Party leader’s coffin will be placed at the National Funeral House in Hanoi for delegations and people to pay their last respects to the leader.

The Party leader will be laid to rest at Mai Dich Cemetery in Hanoi for senior Vietnamese leaders, following the memorial service on July 26.

Vietnam has established a 35-member State funeral committee led by President To Lam to direct, administer, supervise and organize the funeral.

Nguyen Phu Trong, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam Central Committee, passed away in Hanoi on July 19 at the age of 80.

During his lifetime, Trong made many contributions to the glorious revolutionary cause of the Party and the nation. He was awarded many noble distinctions of Vietnam and other countries.

His passing is a great loss to the Party, State and people of Vietnam, reads the special communiqué.

Nguyen Phu Trong was born on April 14, 1944 in Lai Da village of Dong Anh district, Hanoi.

After graduating from Hanoi University, he attended a post-graduate course on the political economic theory at Nguyen Ai Quoc School (now Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics) and then successfully defended his doctoral thesis on historical sciences at the Academy of the Social Sciences in the former Soviet Union.

Returning from the former Soviet Union, Trong was appointed deputy editor-in-chief and editor-in-chief of the Communist Review, a major publication of the Communist Party of Vietnam, before being elected to the Party Central Committee (tenure 1991-1996).

He had held many other key positions, including deputy secretary and secretary of the Hanoi Party Committee and chairman of the National Assembly before being elected general secretary of the Party Central Committee in 2011 (tenure 2011-2016).   

He was re-elected the Party chief in the two following National Party Congresses (tenures 2016-2021 and 2021-2026).