Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh (fourth, left) presents the first-class Independence Order to the State Commission on Overseas Vietnamese at the ceremony in Hanoi on November 19 (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – The State Commission on Overseas Vietnamese (SCOV) under the Foreign Ministry held a ceremony in Hanoi on November 19 to celebrate its 60th founding anniversary (November 23).
On behalf of the Party and State leaders, member of the Party Central Committee and Vice President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh bestowed the first-class Independence Order upon the SCOV in recognition of the excellent achievements in its work, which has contributed to national development and defence.
This is the second time the commission has received the honour so far.
Congratulating the SCOV, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh said after the six decades of development, the commission has become an important agency of the Foreign Ministry that has fulfilled its duties in giving proposals to the Party and State, implementing policies on overseas Vietnamese, and encouraging the expatriates to contribute to national development and safeguarding.
The official asked the SCOV to step up making mechanisms and policies relevant to the overseas community so as to help build up the great national unity bloc and mobilise resources for national development. He told the SCOV to strongly engage overseas Vietnamese in the optimisation of chances in the Fourth Industrial Revolution, attract more direct investment from the community, and encourage them to support Vietnamese goods’ entry into foreign markets.
The commission needs to have a good grasp of overseas Vietnamese’ aspirations so as to have practical activities helping them better serve as a bridge linking Vietnam with other countries, Minh said, requesting it to update the expatriates on the country’s situation and the Party and State’s policies to fight back distortions by hostile forces.
According to Deputy Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son, the overseas Vietnamese community now consists of some 4.5 million people in more than 110 countries and territories. Over 500,000 of them are engineers or leading experts in such fields as science – technology, economy and finance.
About 400 – 500 expatriate experts and intellectuals take part in scientific and technological activities in Vietnam each year. Besides, the participation of four intellectuals from France, Japan, the US and Singapore in the 15-member economic advisory group of the Prime Minister has encouraged overseas intellectuals to contribute more to national development, Son said.
He added many expatriates have returned to do business in the homeland, creating major enterprises, generating jobs, and boosting technology transfer and local development. There are nearly 3,000 businesses with the total capital of about 4 billion USD owned by overseas Vietnamese in the country at present./.
VNA
