According to the National Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs (COVA), around 150,000 overseas Vietnamese returned home to celebrate the traditional Lunar New Year festival (Tet), bringing the total number of overseas Vietnamese returning home in 2006 to 670,000.
In addition to visiting their relatives and friends, overseas Vietnamese made fact-finding tours of tourist resorts and economic zones to seek trade and investment opportunities.
During Tet, overseas Vietnamese held a lot of activities to raise funds for the poor at home. The Vietnamese business community in Germany orgainsed a concert in Hanoi on February 10 to raise around VND300 million for the poor. Overseas Vietnamese in San Francisco, the US, held a charitable music performance in Hai Phong City on February 23.
Meanwhile, COVA sent two art troupes to serve Vietnamese communities in some Northern European countries and Thailand from February 13 to March 10. The committee is coordinating with relevant organizations to complete procedures on visa exemption for Vietnamese nationals holding foreign passports by the end of the second quarter of this year. It will also finalise documents to create favourable conditions for overseas Vietnamese to buy houses in the homeland.
According to the committee, overseas Vietnamese are pleased with the country’s achievements in the integration process, especially Vietnam’s admission to the World Trade Organisation and successful organization of the 14th APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting.
