The instructions are being prepared and would be issued this month, Nguyen Van Toan, deputy head of the Justice Administration Department under the Ministry of Justice told Thanh Nien Friday.

Under the amended law, foreigners and overseas Vietnamese applying for dual citizenship have to be approved by the Vietnamese president with an additional condition, such as being married to a Vietnamese citizen, having Vietnamese parents or children, having made significant contributions to the country, or whose citizenship would be of benefit to the nation.

Toan said it was very simple for overseas Vietnamese to regain their Vietnamese citizenship as long as they still kept personal papers concerning their origins such as birth certificates, ID cards, a valid passport, and a marriage certificate.

“The registration officers [who work at Vietnamese representative offices abroad] will just write down on their application that they have Vietnamese nationality,” Toan said.

Yet only a small number of overseas Vietnamese still keep those papers, he said, adding that others would have to wait for their earlier Vietnamese citizenship confirmed by the registration office following instructions from the ministries of Justice, Foreign Affairs and Public Security.

Under the old law, citizens would automatically lose their Vietnamese citizenship once they received nationality in another country.

Unofficial statistics from local governments show that nearly 10,000 people are living in Vietnam of uncertain nationality, most of them frequent emigrants between Vietnam and Laos, Cambodia and China.

If these people have resided in Vietnam for 20 years or more and have never violated Vietnamese laws, they will be exempt from the application fees and only need to submit the application form and a résumé with no need for Vietnamese language certificates or other personal papers like other applicants, Toan said.

He said despite the lack of an implementing decree, concerned agencies should not delay receiving applications. They would, in any case, need time to classify the applications and answer people’s questions concerning the process, Toan added.

Reported by Y Nguyen