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Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Le Thi Thu Hang has called on Vietnamese representative offices in foreign countries to mobilize the Overseas Vietnamese (OV) resources to develop the nation.

Hang, who is also the Chairwoman of the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs, made the call while attending a session on the OV affairs and citizen protection held on December 17 as part of the 32nd diplomatic conference.

Hailing the efforts by the offices over the past time, she urged them to pay further attention to and support the OVs in stabilizing their lives and better integrating in the host nations, while promoting assistance for the Vietnamese citizens to preserve the Vietnamese language and cultural identity.

The official asked them to continue strictly following and carrying out the missions stated in the Politburo’s conclusion on the OV affairs in 2024, renew communications work, and diversify activities to mobilize the OVs, especially the young, to turn their heart to the homeland.

Regarding the citizen protection, Hang stressed the acceleration of the professionalism and completion of the procedures to handle the work, diversification of information reception and settlement, and promotion of coordination with competent authorities in the host nations to address urgent issues.

She also ordered the representative offices to pay due heed to evaluating, forecasting and giving warnings on crisis and disaster so as to have rational and prompt solutions, helping ease negative impact.

Besides, the offices should give timely and accurate information on citizen protection work, especially cases that garner public attention, she added.

As many as 150 heads of Vietnamese representative offices in foreign countries and leaders of several departments under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs attended the session to review their attained results since the 31st diplomatic conference, point out shortcomings, and outline orientations for the OV work and citizen protection in the time to come.

Heads of the offices shared their experience in promoting solidarity among the OVs and supporting them to consolidate their legal status and stabilize their lives, as well as the citizen protection work

Mobilizing resources from overseas Vietnamese in new context

The overarching goal of this project is to harness the resources of OVs to contribute to the country’s development during the intensified phase of industrialization and modernization, aligning with Viet Nam’s goal of becoming a developed, high-income nation by 2045 as set forth in the Party’s XIII Congress. It aims to reinforce the solidarity of the entire Vietnamese nation, consolidate the strength and potential of the OVs community contributing to the nation.

Three groups of key solutions

The project has outlined three groups of key solutions.

The first group involves general solutions to elevate awareness, policies, organization, and coordination mechanisms, including: unifying and enhancing societal awareness and responsibility regarding attracting OVs’ resources for development; reviewing, amending, supplementing, and perfecting policies and laws to create favorable conditions for OVs to fell secure to invest and do business back in their homeland.

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Accordingly, ministries, sectors, localities, the Viet Nam Fatherland Front, unions, economic and social organizations are tasked with formulating specific policies, projects, and programs to attract OVs’ resources.

The second group encompasses specific solutions tailored to each target or resource type to attract experts, intellectuals, talents among OVs and Vietnamese laborers to return to the country; to improve the investment environment, maintaining the momentum of remittances, supporting OVs in promoting and marketing Vietnamese products in foreign markets; to establish specific policies and measures to leverage the “soft” resources of the OV community.

The third group focuses on nurturing and developing the OV community in the host countries; fostering cooperation with countries, international organizations and the governments of countries with Vietnamese residents to protect the legitimate rights and interests of OVs.

This solution also aims to strengthen and develop associations of experts, intellectuals, entrepreneurs among OVs as the core, guiding the community’s development in host countries; attracting successful OVs to assist weaker ones; intensifying Vietnamese language teaching, imparting Viet Nam’s rich cultural heritage to young Vietnamese generations abroad, fostering connections between the younger generation of OVs and the homeland.

The five major tasks of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Resolution 36-NQ/TW on Overseas Vietnamese affairs clearly states: “Engaging with the Overseas Vietnamese community is the responsibility of the entire political system and the entire populace”. In this spirit, the project has defined specific duties for ministries, sectors, and localities.

For the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, alongside being the focal point for monitoring, coordinating, urging, and consolidating the implementation progress of the plan, Deputy Minister Le Thi Thu Hang highlighted a focus on five major tasks.

First, intensifying the work of supporting and mobilizing the OVs communites, discovering new talents, promoting connections, supporting the formation, consolidation, and development of associations, intellectual networks, and proactive entrepreneurs, in order to make contributions to the country’s development. Additionally, enhancing engagement with authorities and organizing bodies of host countries to ensure the legitimate rights and interests, creating favorable conditions to elevate the position of the Vietnamese communities and associations abroad.

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Second, bolstering research and consolidating information on the OVs’ resources; supporting ministries, sectors, localities, organizations, groups, businesses, and individuals in connecting and attracting resources from Vietnamese abroad. Collaborating with localities to organize programs for OVs such as Homeland Spring (Xuan Que Huong), Summer Youth Camps, Vietnamese language training courses, conferences, workshops to gather feedbacks and annual charity events.

Third, organizing activities to update information on the country’s situation, policies, and laws; combining with listening to the thoughts, aspirations, and opinions of OVs; proposing relevant authorities to review, amend, supplement and issue policies and laws to resolve difficulties and create favorable conditions for OVs to live, work, invest, produce and do business in Viet Nam.

Fourth, continuing the development and implementation of projects such as the project on Database of overseas Vietnamese, the project “Mobilizing overseas Vietnamese to introduce and consume products, and develop distribution channels for Vietnamese goods abroad in the 2020-2024 period”, and the Project “Honouring the Vietnamese language in the overseas Vietnamese community from 2023 to 2030”.

Last, organizing training sessions to enhance the knowledge of officers engaged in community engagement and attracting resources from the OV community.