Ho Chi Minh City’s Liaison Boards for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs need to hold regular meetings with overseas Vietnamese to reflect their aspirations and suggestions towards competent agencies as well as promote their role in promoting people-to-people exchanges and introducing Vietnamese culture to international friends.

The proposals were made by the Standing Board of the Vietnam Fatherland Front in HCM City chapter at an October 30 meeting to review the 10-year implementation of Resolution 36-NQ/TW on overseas Vietnamese affairs issued by the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) Politburo.

The standing board also asked for more attention to supporting overseas Vietnamese youth around the world to return to their homeland and make their contributions to the country.

Around two million Vietnamese expatriates have come from HCM City or have relatives in the city. The majority of them reside in developed countries, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Vietnam has issued many policies to exempt overseas Vietnamese from visas, encourage registration to keep their Vietnamese nationality, call for their investment in the homeland, and support them to buy a house, with the view to encouraging them to return and strengthening the connection between Vietnam and other countries.

More than 5.3 million overseas Vietnamese arrivals to Vietnam were recorded through Tan Son Nhat International Airport between 2004 and June 2013. Most of them registered to reside temporarily in the city, heard participants at the meeting.

To date, over 3,000 Vietnamese expatriates have returned to their roots in the city. The local authorities also granted long-term temporary residence permits to 9,234 overseas Vietnamese workers and investors.

More than 33 billion USD in remittances have been transferred through banks and credit institutions nationwide to help stabilise the economy in the last 10 years. Overseas remittances to the city is estimated to reach 11 billion USD this year.

Vietnamese living and working abroad have also financed 70 billion VND (3.29 million USD) to realise social and charitable programmes in 24 districts in the city.-VNA