A website designed to link overseas
Vietnamese throughout the world was launched yesterday, Dec 8.

Jointly
launched by the Vietnam News Agency; the Foreign Ministry-supervised State
Committee for Overseas Vietnamese; and the Information and Communications
Ministry’s Foreign Information Service, the website, www.vietkieu.info, is the
largest-ever information project specifically designed for overseas Vietnamese.

It
provides information about Party and the State’s policies and guidelines for
overseas Vietnamese, their activities in support of their homeland and
outstanding overseas Vietnamese.

It also
serves as a detailed database.

Deputy
Prime Minister Pham Gia Khiem, who is also Foreign Minister, members of the
Party Central Committee’s Publicity and Education Commission, representatives of
the two ministries and VNA pressed the button to officially link the web site to
the internet.

Its
mission is titled “Connecting Vietnamese”.

Khiem
said he was delighted to witness the debut of a web site that was intended to
serve the community and link overseas Vietnamese on five continents.

He asked
news providers to provide more specialised pages, columns, news and articles to
better serve the Party and State’s mass mobilisation and foreign affairs.

VNA
Director General Tran Mai Huong said as the official voice of the Party and
State, the agency had long provided information about overseas Vietnamese.

The
agency would increase the dissemination of information in various forms to
promote the image of Viet Nam and its major events to help foreigners and
Vietnamese communities abroad have an accurate and complete understanding of
what happens in the country.

The
information would include Party and State policies.

National pages

The web
site is divided into national pages so that its readers can quickly learn about
the lives of the overseas Vietnamese community in each country.

The
Community News column is supplemented with information from reporters, agencies
for foreign affairs, overseas Vietnamese trade missions as well as overseas
Vietnamese.

Readers
can find an overview of each nation and its relations with Viet Nam in the
Contents column of each nation.

The web
site also provides systematised State documents and policies divided into such
categories as nationality, investment-business and verification of Vietnamese
origin.

A list
of overseas Vietnamese diplomatic agencies, associations, companies, trade
centres and restaurants is being updated to facilitate business transactions and
personal relations.

The
Military Commercial Joint Stock Bank has joined with VNA and the other agencies
to build the web site.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News