Overseas Vietnamese: Paths back to nation
WVR - Every overseas Vietnamese has their own paths to comeback to the fatherland. Below is the sharings from some of Vietnamese businesses, experts contributing to national development.
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Startup visa, income tax reduction
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| Mr. Pham Trung Kien, General Secretary of the Vietnam Business Association in the UK. |
Mr. Pham Trung Kien, Secretary of Vietnam Business Association in the UK: I’m one of 300 people coming to the United Kingdom with the startup visa. Therefore, my family was allowed to enter the United Kingdom for living. I received the support package from UK National Innovation Center (NIC), Department of Industry through a link every week.
Accordingly, I opened a account and submit an idea every week. If my idea approved, NIC would come directy or have callings for interview. In case the ideas are accepted, funds will be disbursed and a monitoring department will be established. It’s such a great experience for Vietnam to attract talents from all over the world.
Dr. Le Huy Binh, a Vietnamese in the UK: Vietnam needs to attract foreign experts and overseas Vietnamese by policy of income tax reduction, exemption or reduction of personal income tax for foreign experts, especially overseas Vietnamese, which should be able applied for a certain period of time to create attractiveness. For these experts, it is necessary to create opportunities for them to share knowledge and experiences to team of policy makers on enhancing the country's competitiveness.
Promoting signing agreements of labor export
Prof. Nguyen Dinh Phu, Chairman of the Vietnamese entrepreneurs network in the United States of America (VENUSA): The US is the top developed industry country in the world. It results the attractiveness of high quality labors and top experts in the world. Currently, there are 2.3 million Vietnamese people living and working in the US. The number of overseas Vietnamese students in the US rank 5th with 22,000 students.
Vietnamese community’s important position has gradually increased in socio-economic life in the US. There are overseas entrepreneurs coming back Vietnam for building factories, businesses, commercial establishments contributing to the US-Vietnam growth trade.
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| Professor Nguyen Dinh Phu, Chairman of the Vietnamese Businessmen Association in the US. |
Many Vietnamese - origin entrepreneurs are becoming important bridges to develop Vietnam-US relations as much strong as today. Vietnam-US entrepreneurs community are always towards fatherland with a lot of activities, including charities especially during COVID-19 pandemic.
The Vietnamese in the US are the top contributors with about 50% of the total remittances to Vietnam.
In recent times, the Vietnamese Businessmen Association in the US has worked with a number of American businesses and Vietnamese businesses in the US. Many of them would like to import Vietnamese labors to the US in such kind areas of the pharmaceutical, medical, health care and nail salon industry. Among them, a leading Alaskan salmon producer desires to bring Vietnamese workers to work on a seasonal basis.
In September 2023, President of the US Joe Biden visited Vietnam and two countries upgraded the bilateral relations to Strategic Comprehensive Partnership, opened opportunity of labor export, allowing Vietnamese experts to the US for studying and working. I hope the two countries to be able to sign an agreement on labor export. I hope to collaborate with agencies and companies in Vietnam to professionally design a labor export program for the US market, where the requirements are strict in terms of law, vocational training conditions and English qualifications.
To attract overseas retirees
Prof. Dang Luong Mo, a Vietnamese in Japan: Looking back to the 70s of the 20th century, the microchip industry brought Japan to miraculous development and was admired by the world. The Republic of Korea, China, Taiwan (China), etc also had important achievements in this area afterwards. What they have in common is making good use of the resources of overseas Koreans, overseas Chinese ling in developed countries such as the US, Japan, and Europe. Therefore, Vietnam needs to attract Vietnamese forces abroad.
Vietnamese overseas can be divided into two groups. Those are retired and non-retired ones.
Among them, the retirees, having a lot of time and not hungry for finance, are willing to contribute according to their ability. In addition to experiences, they also have advantages of divered relations, friends and students.
Overseas Vietnamese experts might be invited to work from 1-2 months in Vietnam or even working online. State could establish overseas Vietnamese advisory group on semi-conductor chips.
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| Professor Dang Luong Mo, a Vietnamese in Japan. |
In addition, Vietnam needs to attract Vietnamese retirees in developed industrial countries, for example from the US because it is multi-racial, multi-ethnics and has the largest number of overseas Vietnamese. including 340,000 people over 65 years old.
“If we only attract 10% of such elderly overseas to return and live in Vietnam, which means 34,000 people, we will have mobilized an amount of remittances equivalent to over 40,000 people of labor export category.
This is only counting the amount of remittances from these people’s pension sources, not to mention the amount of savings. Moreover, overseas Vietnamese over 65 years old are considered as “bags of wisdom”, stores of “experience”, “wisdom”, a large part of them also is strong enough to contribute to the cause of building and developing the country”, the professor said.
There is an idiom “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree”, which describes when people got one foot in the grave, they always miss their fatherland. Many people would like to live their rest of live in their hometown. I, myself, have come back for living in Vietnam only by my pension and savings for 20 years.
There needs to be careful preparation to welcome retired Vietnamese overseas. The State would better encourage or proactively build and renovate welfare facilities with complete medical activities for elderly Vietnamese overseas. At the same time, diplomatic agencies in countries where they live should conduct information activities and explain such welfare facilities and policy mechanisms for them.
Once a number of elderly overseas Vietnamese have repatriated, their children and grandchildren will also come to visit them every year, leading to another source of foreign exchange income. Not to mention, this also contributes to the development of solidarity between Vietnamese people at home and overseas. It’s truly convenient both ways. I hope the plan to attract the overseas retirees will be a new direction in increasing remittances activity.
Taking advantages of the Christmas Eve and New Year
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Bui Quoc Bao: I’m the Associated Professor at Avoie Mont Blanc University, France. From 2016, I have been teaching and researching at Ton Duc Thang University, Ho Chi Minh City as an expert.
My friends or students in Western countries like to explore and discover new lands. They could live in a foreign country (like Vietnam) for studying, working or traveling within several months or years, then came back home to have new experience of country, people and culture. It can be concluded that adventure, exploration, and discovery is a part of Western culture, while it is not a tradition in Vietnam.
I had a chance to visit Shenzen University, China. I had occasion to see top overseas Chinese experts, researchers are invited to work, teach and mentor their students, advise strategy for Shenzen University during some weeks or some months in a year.
The Chinese overseas usually make use of Christmas and New Year time in Western countries to both visit their family and work with Chinese agencies within 2-4 weeks. It’s a thing that Vietnam could learn.
The Vietnamese reaching to the world, working in modern countries, contributing to remittances annually is important to Vietnam on one hand. On the other hand, their experiences of working in such mordern and advanced positions as well as environments would indirectly and valuably contribute to the process of building policies and developing society in Vietnam.
