Ha Noi (VNA) – The Government will pay special attention to the teaching of the Vietnamese language among overseas Vietnamese (OV), considering this a priority in 2008, a governmental official said on January 17.
“The Committee for OV Affairs (COVA) will increase its supportive measures to enable the Vietnamese language teaching programmes to be conducted extensively and intensively among the communities of Vietnamese, particularly those of the third generation, who are residing in 94 countries and territories,” Nguyen Thanh Son, acting director of the Committee – a subsidiary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – told a press briefing in Ha Noi.
Son further said that the Government has over recent years given assistance to the education of the Vietnamese language, with teachers and textbooks being sent to some countries to help the communities.
According to the COVA, around 160,000 OVs are expected to return home during Tet (Lunar New Year holiday), an increase of 20 percent over last year.
A welcome ceremony, with the participation of State President Nguyen Minh Triet and around 1,000 OVs, will be held on January 31 by the COVA in collaboration with the Viet Nam Fatherland Front Central Committee.
COVA highly appreciates OVs’ active contributions to their homeland, Son said, mentioning their investment projects, remittance sent to the country and humanitarian activities.
Statistics released by the MoFA showed that so far, around 3,000 OV-invested projects, capitalised at around 2 billion USD, have been licensed.
Foreign remittance sent to Viet Nam reached approximately 5.6 billion USD in 2007, nearly 1 billion USD higher than the previous year.
Overseas Vietnamese donated a combined 4.7 billion VND to natural disaster victims in their homeland last year.-Enditem
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