Nearly 200 people attended the event including the embassy staff, Vietnam’s representative agencies, students and post-graduates, and their international friends.

Addressing the ceremony, Ambassador Le Sy Vuong Ha reviewed major achievements of Vietnam’s Doi Moi (Renewal) process which helped maintain high economic growth and improve people’s living standards. The ambassador briefed participants on the success of the 11^th National Party Congress and highlighted active contributions of the generations of Vietnamese living in Canada to help the disadvantaged people from the regions in Vietnam hit by natural calamities in Vietnam.

Recently, the Vietnamese community in Canada has raised more than CAD30,000 to flood victims from Vietnam’s central region.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese Association in Nakhon Phanon province, Thailand also held a Tet-gathering for overseas Vietnamese.

The ceremony was attended by more than 1,500 overseas Vietnamese representing 18 Vietnamese associations in Thailand, Vietnamese Ambassador to Thailand Ngo Duc Thang, Consul General in Khon Kaen, Tran Nguyen Truc, and leaders from the Vietnam-Thailand Friendship Association.

Addressing the opening ceremony, mayor of the Nakhon Phanom province highlighted the importance of the Thailand-Vietnam relations and the active role of overseas Vietnamese in Thailand. He added that the friendship between the two countries had been nurtured for a long time as both nations are ASEAN members and share the Mekong River. In addition, Nakhon Phanom province is very close to Vietnam’s central region. Overseas Vietnamese in Nakhon Phanom in particular and people in Thailand in general have played an increasingly important role in the development and prosperity of Thailand.

Ambassador Thang expressed his wish that Vietnamese Association in Thailand would develop further and make as great contributions as other communities and that the association’s executive committees would become the key force to boost solidarity between the two nations and promote the local Vietnamese community’s development.