The talk activated simultanenously on the Government Website (www.chinhphu.vn), the main organizer, the Communist Party’s website (www.dangcongsan.vn) and VietNamNet (www.vietnamnet.vn) began to take questions one month earlier and attracted a good amount of attention of the Vietnamese readership and people at home and abroad as well as media and foreigners.

Starting 8.35 AM and closing 12 AM on February 9, the talk surpassed the organising board's schedule by one hour and a half. During that three hours and a half, PM Nguyễn Tấn Dũng answered over 40 questions, selected from the plus 20,000 sent to him under the nine topics covering some of the issues of public concern such as socio-economic development, the fight against corruption, administrative reform, and educational improvement.

The talk was seen by many as successful because they thought the leader’s replies were plausible, straight and satisfactory. His openness and willingness to answer any question handed over as well as his posture of intelligence throughout the talk gave many a feeling of trust in the Communist Party’s rule, the Government's governance and the Prime Minister’s action. Unlike other ways by which leaders of the Communist Party, State and Government often use to interact with the public such as making trips to localities, visiting and consoling people stricken by natural disasters, working with people's organizations such as the Vietnam Fatherland Front; meeting with business people; debriefing voters after every sitting of the National Assembly or answering questions from the public before the National Assembly, this is an alternative of meeting the public as PM Nguyễn Tấn Dũng put it, “This is an ordinary task supposed to be conducted by any leader and unusually enough, this time it is done over the Internet in light of the amazing information technology advances.”

His talk acted as a starting point for a new practice of working style to be adopted by Government members and leaders of centrally-administered cities and provinces, who will now frequently receive questions from the average people through the Internet.

Please click here to the full script.

By Xuân Hồng