Heightening Gia Lai’s stature ceaselessly
External affairs activities in Gia Lai province have been developing in depth and width, contributing to enhancing the position and prestige of the province so far.
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| Mr. Vo Ngoc Thanh, Chairman of the provincial People's Committee of Gia Lai received Ambassador of Denmark to Viet Nam Kim Hojlund Christensen on March 19, 2021. (Photo: L.K) |
Over the past two years, the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic have seriously impacted the socio-economic development of Viet Nam in general and Gia Lai in particular. Under the sound leadership of the provincial Party Committee, the provincial People’s Committee promptly issued an action plan to direct affiliated agencies, units and local residents to consolidate the effective implementation of the pandemic prevention and control work, so as to ensure the provincial socio-economic development.
In addition to the efforts by the entire political system of the province, the foreign affairs sector has been actively, creatively and closely followed the implementation of foreign affairs tasks in accordance with the current context, promptly responded to the pandemic, while making contributions to the local politics, economy, culture, information dissemination, border and territory, improving the quality of international cooperation.
Further improving external affairs’ efficiency
In the implementation of the Party’s guideline and the State’s policy of international integration, the province established traditional friendship and cooperation relations with neighboring provinces of Northeastern Cambodia and Lower Laos; and well carried out people-to-people diplomacy and consultations in Viet Nam - Cambodia land border demarcation and marker planting work, and kept their shared borderline peaceful and stable.
Up to now, the province of Gia Lai has formed and inked cooperation agreements with nine organizations and localities from the Czech Republic, Republic of Korea (RoK), Japan, and the US. It has also strengthened ties with 18 international representative agencies, international consular offices and eight international organizations in Viet Nam.
Moreover, the province has expanded and established cooperation with other countries’ embassies and consulate generals in Viet Nam. Especially, the provincial People’s Committee signed a memorandum of understanding with a number of localities, industries and businesses of the Czech Republic and the RoK in the fields of trade, investment, education, culture and tourism. Besides, Gia Lai held talks with an aim at setting up ties with embassies and consulate generals of Israel, Russia, the US, New Zealand, France, Japan, the RoK, India, Singapore, and Indonesia in Viet Nam in order to implement science and technology transfer in the development of high-tech agriculture, health care, and labor export.
The province has also partnered with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to help businesses like Dong Giao Food Export Joint Stock Company and Vinh Hiep Co., Ltd. work with the European Union (EU) to introduce and export local products and services like passion fruit, coffee, and pepper to international markets after the EU - Viet Nam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) came into effect last August.
Foreign affairs activities have proven to be a practical and effective channel of mobilizing resources from non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Gia Lai is attracting more and more international organizations, NGOs, foreign sponsors and overseas Vietnamese (OVs) living and working abroad to support the province in developing its socio-economy and improving people’s living standards.
According to latest statistics, 44 NGOs have registered to support 40 projects with total investment capital of nearly 9.3 million USD. Till date, they disbursed almost 5.9 million USD. Meanwhile, international groups and individuals, and OVs have provided over 200.000 USD in charity programs in Gia Lai.
Beside trade and investment promotion activities, Gia Lai has also concentrated on increasing its visibility to the Czech Republic, South Africa, Japan, and the RoK, and participated in 22 meetings among provinces and cities co-organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and international representative agencies in the Southeast Asian S-shaped country.
Therefore, the province’s stature has been enhanced through special cultural and sporting events such as the 2018 Gong Cultural Festival, 2019 Vietnamese Coffee Day, 2019 International Scientific Conference “The An Khe Paleolithic Industry within the context of Bifacial Industries from Asia”, and 2021 Tien Phong Newspaper Marathon National Championship, among others. These were also opportunities for businesses to increase connectivity, investment cooperation and competitiveness, and expand their export activities in other countries.
Over the past time, due to the complicated developments of the COVID-19 pandemic, Gia Lai province had to implement foreign affairs activities virtually. The provincial Foreign Affairs Department also well ensured consular affairs and citizen protection work so as to support foreign citizens and local citizens who are living, studying and working abroad, especially in Laos and Cambodia, to overcome difficulties caused by the disease.
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| An overivew of Pleiku city, Gia Lai. (Photo: Phan Nguyen) |
Four major tasks
The considerable achievements of the province’s foreign affairs activities have resulted from the care and close direction by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the provincial Party Committee and People’s Committee, as well as from effective coordination among local sectors and functional agencies. At the same time, leaders and staff at the provincial Foreign Affairs Department scored a goal during their task performance.
In order to further boost quality and efficiency of the foreign affairs work to meet requirements of benefiting local socio-economic growth firmly and sustainably, the province sets out the following tasks:
Firstly, the province will continuously carry out directions and instructions on foreign affairs work, especially the country’s viewpoints and guidelines on foreign affairs mentioned in the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress, in line with its real situation.
Secondly, the province will continuously maintain and expand friendship and cooperation relationship in all areas; promote transnational tourism cooperation; beef up people-to-people exchanges and twinning relations between localities along the shared borderline, contributing to building the Viet Nam-Cambodia borderline of peace, friendship and cooperation, while ensuring social order, political security, and COVID-19 prevention and control work; and carry out land border demarcation and marker planting according to the protocol on this work and the “Supplementary Treaty to the 1985 Treaty on the Delimitation of National Boundaries and the 2005 Supplementary Treaty” (known as the 2019 Supplementary Treaty) signed by the Vietnamese and Cambodian Governments.
Thirdly, the province will foster international integration, focusing on economic diplomacy, cultural diplomacy, and foreign investment promotion in order to expand relationship and enhance quality of cooperation relations with partners; further attract and mobilize foreign investment capital. Moreover, Gia Lai will also take full advantage of opportunities from free traded agreements (FTA) between Viet Nam and partners to boost the province’s import-export activities, contributing to fostering its socio-economy in particular and the country’s development in general.
Last but not least, the province will attach special importance to heightening competences on foreign languages and professional knowledge for its personnel in charge of foreign affairs, with the focus on competency in international integration, culture, and information dissemination; build up and comprehensively roll out specific foreign affairs plans, and then regularly hold after-action reviews and summarize experiences to learn from, contributing to further well conducting foreign affairs in the current context.
Once these aforementioned tasks are deployed comprehensively and effectively, the Gia Lai provincial foreign affairs work in the coming time is expected to record more achievements, whereby it will make important contributions to developing the province’s socio-economy and successfully holding firm to its security-defense situation as well.
Chairman of the provincial People's Committee of Gia Lai
