An overseas Vietnamese in the United States has been honoured for his contributions to the mobilisation of the Vietnamese community in the US to contribute to the homeland and conduct various charitable and humanitarian activities.

The US-based Vietnamese embassy presented Tran Quoc Thinh a certificate of merit from Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Pham Gia Khiem on October 9.

Born in 1946, Thinh used to be an officer of the former Republic of Vietnam . He settled in the US in 1975 and soon joined in a patriotic overseas Vietnamese group. He was one of the first overseas Vietnamese to support enthusiastically the representative mission of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam at the United Nation when the mission started its operation in 1977.

During the time of US embargo against Vietnam, Thinh set up a forwarding company to help the Vietnamese community in the US contact their relatives in Vietnam, transfer remittances to the homeland, and conduct humanitarian and charity activities.

Speaking at the ceremony, Thinh expressed his belief that there are more and more overseas Vietnamese will contribute to the homeland because, according to him, regardless of historical and social circumstances, Vietnamese people always remember their origin./.