As many as 1,000 overseas Vietnamese will gather at Hanoi’s National Convention Centre to celebrate the Traditional Lunar New Year Festival (Tet) on February 9. The get-together will be held by the Foreign Ministry’s Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs (COVA) in co-ordination with the Vietnam Fatherland Front (VFF) and other relevant agencies.

This was announced by Deputy Chairman of the COVA Tran Quang Hoan at a press briefing in Hanoi on January 8.

The get-together is of great significance as it heightens Vietnamese people’s great patriotism and national pride and attests to the Party and State’s policy regarding the  overseas Vietnamese community as an integral part of the nation, said Mr Hoan.

Meanwhile, another meeting with overseas Vietnamese will be held in HCM City on February 2 by the Municipal People’s Committee and the Committee for Overseas Vietnamese. Diverse activities will be launched in the city such as a seminar on the role of overseas Vietnamese entrepreneurs and intellectuals in Vietnam’s entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO), an exhibition on overseas Vietnamese’s trade and investment promotion in HCM City and cultural exchanges among overseas Vietnamese and municipal young people.

Currently, Vietnamese diplomatic agencies abroad are accelerating the handling of visa requirements for overseas Vietnamese in order to create favourable conditions for them to return home for the traditional holiday.

Approximately 500,000 overseas Vietnamese visited or did business in Vietnam in 2006. According to the Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs (COVA), the number of overseas Vietnamese returning home for this year’s Tet is expected to surpass last year’s figure of 100,000.