Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyễn Văn Hùng. — Photo toquoc.vn

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism gained substantial achievements in various fields last year. Minister Nguyễn Văn Hùng spoke about the efforts of the sector and the plans to carry out its mission in 2024.

The culture sector has made remarkable progress over the past years. How would you describe these achievements?

We responded to the Government's action guideline in 2023 under the motto of “Solidarity, Discipline - Mettle, Flexibility - Innovation, Creativity - Timeliness, Effectiveness” to continue changing the State management in the culture field.

We are proud that culture is placed in the same position with economy, politics and society in accordance with the Party resolutions.

With the spirit of being proactive, creative and enterprising, all three fields of culture, sports and tourism continue to see positive changes, achieve important results in management, and build and perfect institutions.

The ministry has closely coordinated with related ministries, departments, branches and localities to increase the scale of organisation and quality of cultural and artistic events at regional and national levels.

Art shows, cinema, fine arts exhibitions and museums not only meet the requirements of political tasks and the people's cultural enjoyment needs, and host activities to celebrate major holidays, but also carry out the mission of strengthening the great solidarity of the entire people, promoting the image of the country, attracting tourists and contributing to economic development.

Many traditional cultural values and cultural heritage of the nation are inherited, preserved and developed, which are internationally recognised.

Cultural diplomacy work is actively implemented. Cultural industries are heavily invested in and developed to become an important economic sector of the country.

Sports continues to affirm its role and position by achieving a series of impressive awards in the region and the world.

Last year, Viêt Nam tourism recorded breakthrough growth as international tourist arrivals reached 12.5 million, far exceeding the target of 8 million, and 3.5 times higher than in 2022.

This year is important to implement the goals and tasks in your term as minister. What will the ministry do to successfully carry out the tasks set for your term?

This year has an important role to carry out the socio-economic development goals in accordance with the resolution of the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party and the socio-economic development plan in 2021-2025.

In this context, the culture, sports and tourism sector needs to make good use of its key role in effective implementation six missions and four groups of solutions to build, preserve and develop an advanced culture deeply imbued with national identity, which were underlined by Party General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng at the National Cultural Conference in 2021.

The most important thing for the culture, sports and tourism sector is to continue to perfect institutions and management policies. When we complete it, we will have a solid legal framework so that everyone can feel secure in performing their tasks without having to worry or fear making mistakes. From there, we will implement the national target programme on culture that the sector has advised the Party Central Committee, the Government and the National Assembly.

This mission must be concretised by specific projects and programmes with short, medium and long-term cultural goals such as human resources training, preserving and developing the cultural values of ethnic minority groups, and ensuring cultural institutions meet the enjoyment needs of the people.

What the State can do well and cannot be replaced by any force, the State must undertake. What society can do, society should be empowered to do. For example, cultural industry is a new field which needs to have proper policy to develop.

In his speech at the National Cultural Conference, Party General Secretary Trọng underscored the need to improve the awareness and leadership capacity of the Party and the State management over the cultural sector.

The success of many countries around the world in the cultural industry is thanks to the creative, science and technology forces along with successful businessmen who understand culture. This is also the institutional and policy content that the ministry will focus on in the coming time.

Plus, this year there will be activities to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Điện Biên Phủ Battle Victory, the 80th founding anniversary of the Việt Nam People's Army and other significant events in the whole nation. Thus, the culture sector needs to ensure the successful organisation of these events.

The country is beginning the spring festive season. Could you talk about the role of management at all levels to organise the festivals?

We have many festivals from local to national levels. These festivals contribute to keeping good traditional customs alive. In current years, some festivals focus on commercial purposes. This is not good.

The ministry has issued documents to guide local authorities to organise festivities. We hope people are aware of the true nature of the festivals and participate in the events as creative subjects in preserving and promoting traditional values.

I hope that the ministry's documents, instructions and models for festival organisation which have been designed and carried out will be useful for the local management in festival organisation. — VNS