HCM CITY — The HCM City Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs will continue to promote dissemination of information to overseas Vietnamese and organise activities to meet their demands and aspirations this year.

These were defined as key tasks by the committee at a meeting held on March 12 to finalise its 2019 agenda and reviews its operations last year.

“We will diversify the channels of information used to disseminate information about policies and social and economic situation, create conditions that enable overseas Vietnamese to approach us for formal information and create programmes to interact with [them],” Phùng Công Dũng, chairman of the committee, said at the meeting.

The committee would keep abreast of information about overseas Vietnamese organisations and individuals to mobilise all resources from them to contribute to the country’s development, he said.

“The committee will focus its activities on Tết, organise cultural exchanges as well as reward overseas Vietnamese organisations and individuals who have contributed to the country.”

To carry out all these tasks, the committee plans to regularly organise seminars and conferences at which overseas Vietnamese experts will speak.

It reported it had kept overseas Vietnamese updated on developments in Việt Nam and organised cultural and social programmes for them.
It also provided legal assistance to over 1,000 overseas Vietnamese, provided medical check-ups to 1,000 others in Cambodia and Laos and hosted a summer camp for overseas and HCM City youths.
“In recent years HCM City leaders have organised many activities for overseas Vietnamese, especially for young people and business people, to create an opportunity for us to contribute to the development of the city,” Võ Thành Đăng of Singapore told the meeting.

The overseas Vietnamese in attendance said the city should create a comprehensive database with information about ethnic Vietnamese living all over the world and industries the city seeks to develop and forecasts about future requirements.

Remittances to HCM City were estimated at around US$5 billion and 70 per cent have been invested into production and business.

According to the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs, some 4.5 million ethnic Vietnamese live in more than 110 countries and territories around the world.

They have invested US$4 billion in 3,000 companies in Việt Nam.
Last year remittances to Việt Nam topped $15.9 billion, or 6.6 per cent of GDP. The country is among the top recipients of remittances globally. — VNS