Over the past decade, Da Nang has seen numerous fruitful results from economic diplomacy and people-to-people exchanges in a bid to advertise the image of the city to international friends and to further local progress.

Representatives from a foreign organisation visiting AO victims

To date, the city has established friendly relationships and cooperative ties with a total of 39 localities in 19 countries and territories worldwide, and a total of 77 bilateral cooperation agreements are currently valid. 

Most notably, the municipal Union of Friendship Organisations (DAFO) has played a vital role in bolstering bilateral friendships with people’s organisations in neighbouring countries, other ASEAN member nations, and those countries with which Viet Nam has developed traditional relationships, strategic partnerships, and comprehensive cooperation.  To date, DAFO and its member organisations have established relationships with 65 people’s organisations from 18 countries and territories worldwide.

Over the review period, the city has welcomed a total of 3,015 delegations of international guests at the State diplomatic level, and tens of thousands of foreign groups via people-to-people exchanges.  Also, numerous overseas trips have made by the city’s leaders and local government employees to conduct investment promotion and people-to-people exchange programmes.

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

Over the period, international organisations, foreign funds and NGOs 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 health care, education and training, poverty reduction, social support, environmental protection, and climate change mitigation.

In a similar vein, the district-level authorities and local social associations have jointly cooperated with foreign NGOs to deploy numerous social welfare cooperation projects in the city, which in turn has helped to accelerate the city’s growth.  Most notable were the provision of medical equipment for the General, Cancer and Eye hospitals, the ‘Viet Nam Child Eye Care’ project for the 2016 - 2018 period, the construction of the Viet Nam-UK Institute for Research and Executive Education, the building of 400 houses, totalling 23 million USD, in Nai Hien Dong Ward for displaced families affected by local development projects, and the international-standard OneSky care centre and kindergarten for local disadvantaged children and those of workers at the Hoa Khanh Industrial Park.

Furthermore, special heed has been paid to appealing for more overseas Vietnamese people across the world, whose hometowns are in Da Nang, to join efforts for the city’s progress.  In particular, the city leaders have usually informally met with overseas Vietnamese who have returned to the city to celebrate Tet with their extended families, and the city’s club for overseas Vietnamese businesses was established last year.  

To date, 55 overseas Vietnamese businesses have invested a total of over 1,800 billion VND into the city, with each generating an annual revenue of over 500 billion VND.  Also, they together created direct jobs for about 1,000 people and indirect employment for thousands of others in the local support industry.