HCM City calls for greater investment from Viet Kieu

HCM CITY — The HCM City People's Committee has called on the Viet Kieu (overseas Vietnamese) community to step up investment in key sectors, promising to facilitate this with further administrative reforms.

The appeal and pledge were made at a meeting held between city leaders and 700 Viet Kieu returning to Viet Nam to celebrate the upcoming Tet (Lunar New Year) festival.

Committee chairman Le Hoang Quan conveyed the city's best Tet wishes to the Viet kieu community and presented certificates of merit and insignia to 17 individuals and four collectives for making great contributions to the city's development.

Quan called for further investment from Viet Kieu in several sectors, particularly transport infrastructure, urban pollution treatment, information technology, education and health care.

The committee had instructed relevant departments and agencies to create favourable conditions for Viet kieu to visit, live, work and invest in the city, he said.

Nguyen Phi Hung, deputy director of the municipal Department of Construction, said his department would strengthen administrative reforms to create best conditions for Viet Kieu investments.

The department would also quickly resolve procedural issues relating to house ownership and land-use rights for the Viet Kieu, Hung said.

More than 400 Viet Kieu who are experts in various sectors are now working permanently in the city and about 200 are working in the city's universities.

Last year, the city granted licences for more than 300 Viet Kieu-invested projects with a total capital of VND7 trillion (US$400 million) and received an estimated $3.1 billion in overseas remittances.

The Viet Kieu community also contributed about VND12.2 billion ($690,000) for charity and relief activities in the country last year, according to the Committee for Overseas Vietnamese.

Phan Tham, chairman of the committee, said his committee last year organised several activities, including providing health check-ups, treatment and gifts for 400 poor Viet Kieu in Cambodia and art performances for the community in several other countries. — VNS

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