130,000 overseas Vietnamese to return home for Tet holiday

Nguyen Hong Hue, chairman of the association, said the estimate is based on visa application data.

The number of returning Vietnamese overseas is forecast to sharply increase from mid-December to mid-February, with an estimated 3,000-4,000 arrivals daily.

Tet begins on the first day of the first lunar month, which falls on January 28 next year, but festive celebrations can stretch over days both before and after that. The official break for the upcoming Tet is one week.

People wait for relatives and friends at Tan Son Nhat International Airport

Tan Son Nhat, the country’s largest international airport, will be under more pressure during this holiday season.

The airport, designed for both domestic and international flights, has become increasingly strained. It is expected to handle up to 31 million passengers by the end of this year, far beyond its maximum capacity of 25 million, said Lai Xuan Thanh, director general of the Civil Aviation Administration.

Customs officials at the airport said they stand ready to make sure that customs check only takes about 25-27 seconds.

There are around five million Vietnamese overseas, according to the World Bank.

By 2014, 1.3 million Vietnamese immigrants resided in the US. It was followed by Australia with 227,000 Vietnamese immigrants, Canada with 183,000, and France with 126,000, according to mid-2015 estimates by the United Nations Population Division.

Remittances from Vietnamese overseas remain a key source of funds for the country's economy, equivalent to about 8%-10% of gross domestic product.

Vietnamese-Americans alone sent back about US$7 billion last year. The number is expected to reach US$8 billion this year.

Vietnam recorded roughly US$13 billion in overseas remittances last year, slightly up from US$12 billion in 2014, according to the World Bank.