The National University of Management was founded in 1983 as the Economics Science Institute (ESI) and, until 1991, received assistance from the National Economics University in Hanoi, Vietnam. During this period, students were enrolled in a five-year undergraduate program with the Vietnamese language serving as the main language of instruction. The curriculum, set by the visiting faculty from Hanoi, included major fields in Finance, Commerce, Agriculture, Industry, and Socialist Planning. With the opening up of Cambodia to the international community during the early 1990s, the ESI was renamed the Faculty of Business (FOB).