Over the past decade, Da Nang has gained remarkable achievements from its people-to-people exchange activities.

Deputy Secretary Tri (centre) presenting Certificates of Merit to representatives of the outstanding groups

To date, the city has established cooperative and friendship relationships with 39 localities from 19 countries and territories worldwide.  A total of 77 bilateral cooperation agreements are currently valid.

Most notably, the city has to date attracted 486 valid FDI projects from 38 countries and territories worldwide with a total investment of about 3.25 billion USD.   Representative offices of 152 international organisations, foreign-invested enterprise funds, and foreign non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are operating effectively in the city.

In addition, hundreds of billions of VND from the city budget has gone to help southern and central provinces of Laos.

Between 2007 and 2017, international organisations, foreign-invested enterprise funds and NGOs together conducted a total of 1,300 meaningful projects in Da Nang with a total committed funding of over 1,574 billion VND.   The majority of these projects involve healthcare, education, poverty reduction, environmental protection, and climate change adaptation.

The municipal Union of Friendship Organisations (DAFO) and its member organisations have established friendship relationships with 65 people’s organisations from 18 countries and territories worldwide.  It has played a vital role in making suggestions to the city authorities about people-to-people exchanges, and bolstering bilateral friendships with foreign countries. 

The focus was on furthering the advertisement of the beautiful images of the city to international friends, as well as appealing for even more overseas Vietnamese people across the world, whose hometowns are in Da Nang, to join efforts with the local authorities to implement social welfare programme in the city.

Addressing a meeting on Tuesday to review the implementation of people-to-people exchange activities in the city over the past 10 years, municipal Party Committee Deputy Secretary Vo Cong Tri asked the local authorities to enhance their State management of the city-based international organisations.  Special attention should be paid to training qualified human resources for people-to-people exchange activities, as well as encouraging local residents to build a civilised urban lifestyle and show civilised behaviour towards international friends. 

Also at the meeting, 10 outstanding groups and 20 individuals were awarded Certificates of Merit from the municipal People’s Committee for their active involvement in local people-to-people exchange activities.