Status of Viet kieu reviewed
HCM CITY (VNS)— The integration of the Overseas Vietnamese community with its fatherland will come under review at a conference to be held in HCM City later this month.
Around 1,000 delegates will attend the second such conference, titled Vision Towards 2020 – Overseas Vietnamese Community Integrates and Grows with Homeland.
Speaking to the media last Friday, Nguyen Thanh Son, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and Chairman of the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese, said the conference would review the development of the Overseas Vietnamese community so that the Government's policies can be better implemented and the outcomes of the first conference in 2009 can be better exploited.
The conference would also enable the Government to gather opinions on how to utilise the skills of Overseas Vietnamese for the nation's industrialisation and modernisation, he said.
Following the opening session on September 27 the conference will feature four parallel sessions – The Community's Future – Economic Integration and Growth Issues; Cultural Characters and National Traditions – Impetus for Community Solidarity, Linkage with Fatherland; Overseas Vietnamese Intellectuals with the Country's Industrialisation and Modernisation – from Potential to Reality; and Overseas Vietnamese Businesspeople's Contributions to the Future of the Community and Fatherland.
During the conference, the delegates will also visit economic, cultural, and media agencies in the city.
The Overseas Vietnamese community will be represented at the conference by academics, businesspeople, writers and other artists, leaders of organisations, and youths.
Also attending will be officials from ministries, Government agencies, and local administrations around the country, and representatives of Vietnamese agencies and Overseas Vietnamese associations abroad.
According to incomplete figures from the Committee for Overseas Vietnamese, which organises the conference, around 4.5 million ethnic Vietnamese live in over 100 countries and territories.
They include more than 400,000 scientists and other experts working in research institutes and universities in advanced nations.
In the first eight months of this year remittances by Overseas Vietnamese amounted to over US$6 billion, compared with $9.4 billion in the whole of last year.
The community has so far invested $6 billion in 2,000 projects in Viet Nam.
Son said these figures show the significant contribution made by the community to their fatherland, adding it was an "important resource" for the country's development. — VNS