Needy workers in Ho Chi Minh City have been presented with around 6,000 free bus tickets to return to their hometowns to celebrate the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday.

The charity programme, the sixth of its kind, is organised by the Ho Chi Minh City Export Processing Zone and Industrial Park Authority (HEPZA) and municipal Federation of Labour.

Since 2008, the programme has given away more than 84,000 bus tickets to over 20,000 workers operating in and out of the city’s industrial and processing zones on the occasion of the festive holiday.

According to the chairwoman of Ho Chi Minh City’s Federation of Labour Nguyen Thi Thu, 70 percent of the programme’s total cost was funded by local enterprises, with the remaining provided by local trade unions.

The programme ran from January 14-16.-VNA