Vietnamese youths studying and working overseas had an online chat with State officials on Jan. 6 over matters of mutual concern, including how to lure young talents to contribute to the nation’s development.

Entitled “Connecting Young Vietnamese”, the talk involved officials from the Committee for Overseas Vietnamese (OV), the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and the Vietnam Students’ Association, as well as young people living abroad in the US, Australia, China, Russia, Japan and Singapore.

Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union Nguyen Dac Vinh said that the talk, held for the first time by the union, sought effective ways to connect young Vietnamese across the nation and world to share information and create solidarity and strength for the fatherland.

Answering queries from some youths about how to join in youth union activities in their host countries, Vinh said that they could sign up to be members of Vietnamese Students’ Associations in France , the Republic of Korea (RoK) and Japan .

Another Youth Union official said that the union was learning how to set up branches in foreign countries.

Doan Nam Thai, from Seoul National University in RoK, asked what the Ministry of Education and Training had done to lure excellent Vietnamese lecturers in other countries to work for the homeland.

Nguyen Xuan Vang, from the ministry, said that Vietnamese intellectuals were always encouraged to come back home.

“Lecturers and research students who wish to work for the country can contact the ministry’s Vietnam International Education Development for further information,” he said.

Pham Tuan Anh, from the National University of Singapore, asked whether there were any more policies for overseas students after the first-ever youth union congress on young talents was held in Hanoi in the middle of last year.

Vinh, from the Youth Union, replied that they had set up a database of young talents and had held further activities on how to tap these talents’ potentials.
“We’ve been bad about supporting our talents in the past. We’ll get better about this in the future,” Vinh said.

Other matters were also raised during the three-hour chat that drew a pool of questions and concerns from overseas Vietnamese youths./.