HCM CITY — Prime Minister Nguyễn Xuân Phúc has asked the Central Highlands province of Gia Lai’s People’s Committee to coordinate with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and relevant agencies to organise the 2018 Central Highlands Gong Cultural Festival.

The Gia Lai Province People’s Committee has been told to use private resources and the provincial government’s budget to organise the festival.

The festival, held to promote the unity of local ethnic groups, is scheduled to take place in mid-November.

The event aims to honour the cultural space of the gongs in the Central Highlands in line with an action plan issued in 2006 by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to preserve and promote gong cultural heritage.

During the festival, a wide range of activities will be jointly held by five Central Highlands provinces, including a street festival featuring gong performances, reenactment of traditional rituals and festivals of 11 ethnic groups, wooden statue-carving and brocade weaving.

The event will also feature a seminar on the preservation of gong cultural values and an exhibition on ethnic costumes.

Included in 2008 on the Representative List of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity (originally proclaimed in 2005), the cultural space of the gongs in the Central Highlands is closely linked to the daily life of the local people and the cycle of the seasons. — VNS