HO CHI MINH CITY, VIETNAM - Media OutReach - 2 December 2021 - Within the framework of President Nguyen Xuan Phuc's visit to the Russian Federation, Ho Chi Minh City Development JSC Bank (HDBank) signed a memorandum of understanding with the World Chess Federation (FIDE) and the Vietnam Chess Federation (VCF) in Moscow on December 1, 2021, for organising international chess tournaments in the next 10 years.

FIDE will include the annual HDBank International Chess Tournament held in Vietnam in its list of official tournaments and help improve its field.

The VCF will organise the tournament, improve the skills of Vietnamese team and players and get players from all over the world.

As part of the tournament, the parties also agreed to organise workshops for referees, coaches, and organisers and chess classes for teenagers and younger children by grandmasters.

They will undertake a programme called 'Chess in schools' and organise events in 2022, a year that has been designated by FIDE as The Year of Women in Chess.

Cooperation between the three parties is of great significance in improving the skills of Vietnamese players, referees and organisers to help chess in the country grow stronger and become more professional.

Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, permanent vice chairwoman of HDBank, said: "Chess, with its special language of intelligence, has been a bridge to help people get closer together and blur borders between countries, religions, languages, and cultures.

"That is why HDBank has chosen to embrace it for nearly a decade as part of our sustainable development programme."

With the signing of the memorandum of understanding, HDBank will continue to foster chess and collaborate with the VCF as it has done for more than a decade since 2011.

The HDBank International Chess Tournament is held in March every year since 2011 and has become a unique sporting event. The tournament has twice welcomed the FIDE President: Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in 2018 and Arkady Dvorkovich in 2019.

In 2020 and 2021 the tournament was not held due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Over its nine years the HDBank International Chess Tournament attracted players from 42 countries and five continents.

Their numbers kept increasing every year as did the field and organisation.

With an average elo rating of 2370 - 2400, experts consider the HDBank International Chess Tournament the most elite in Asia.

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