Speaking at the Conference summarizing Ho Chi Minh City's foreign affairs in the 2020-2025 period held on the morning of December 13, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Bui Thanh Son affirmed that Ho Chi Minh City is the "locomotive" in foreign affairs and international integration and requested the City to uphold the spirit of "Innovation - Pioneering - Integration", maximizing the strengths of the locality.
Reporting to the Deputy Prime Minister and the Conference on the 5-year journey of implementing foreign affairs work, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Vo Van Hoan said that the City has achieved great and comprehensive achievements in many fields such as: Consulting and building foreign affairs strategy; political diplomacy; economic diplomacy; cultural diplomacy; foreign information and propaganda; people's diplomacy and work with overseas Vietnamese, citizen protection; foreign security.
"These results are not only a testament to the tireless efforts of leaders at all levels and staff, but also reflect the spirit of solidarity, creativity and determination to overcome difficulties of the entire political system," affirmed Mr. Vo Van Hoan.
However, in addition to the successes, the Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee also informed about the difficulties and challenges that the City has to face. For example, the lack of coordination between foreign affairs agencies; lack of specialized diplomatic human resources in new fields such as digital transformation, green economy; limited cultural diplomacy; digitalization of diplomatic work has not been fully implemented; global challenges including climate change, requirements for common standards and regulations on emission reduction, energy conversion, etc.
Reaching out to become a "gateway" in the region
After listening to the report of the City People's Committee and the speeches of representatives of agencies, departments and branches, Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son emphasized that in the overall achievements of the country's foreign affairs, there is an important contribution of local foreign affairs. With the role of the locomotive of the country and the key economic region in the South, the foreign affairs of Ho Chi Minh City has "gone beyond the local framework"; not only contributing to the development of the City but also having a widespread impact on other localities and contributing to the common achievements of the country with many outstanding marks.
At the same time, the Deputy Prime Minister highly appreciated the fact that for the first time at the local level, the City has developed and issued the Strategy to enhance foreign relations to 2030 with a vision to 2045 with many important and strategic orientations.
"This affirms that Ho Chi Minh City is increasingly successful in raising the level of foreign affairs with confidence, demonstrating its capacity and mettle in international integration, meeting the country's assigned tasks as well as keeping up with the flow of the times," Deputy Prime Minister Bui Thanh Son emphasized.
Specifically analyzing the spirit of "Innovation - Pioneering - Integration", the Deputy Prime Minister said that the City needs to strongly "Innovate" its thinking and approach towards "global thinking, local action", bringing the City to the level of becoming a "gateway" of the region; "Pioneer" to take the lead in exploring new connotations and fields of foreign affairs such as digital diplomacy, energy diplomacy, semiconductor diplomacy, etc.; "Integration" to proactively absorb the quintessence of humanity and apply it to the City's practice.
In the coming time, the Deputy Prime Minister suggested that the City focus on implementing 6 key task groups.
Firstly, promote the leading role of political diplomacy, continue to elevate local foreign affairs, deepen the City's foreign relations, produce concrete results and have a widespread impact throughout the region.
According to the Deputy Prime Minister, with the advantage that few localities have, which is the extensive relationship with many foreign localities, including world-class economic, financial and investment centers, the City needs to transform these opportunities into real results, learn from experience as well as attract economic resources, scientific and technological knowledge from partners. In particular, it needs to reach out to become a "gateway" in the region, not only a growth pole, an economic center of the whole country but also develop on par with major cities in the region, an economic, financial and service center of Asia, an attractive global destination.
Second, focus on promoting economic diplomacy to serve the city's socio-economic development. In addition to renewing and maximizing old growth drivers such as export, investment, etc., the city needs to take the lead in opening up and mobilizing new growth drivers such as science and technology, innovation, knowledge economy, etc.
Third, promote the spiritual and cultural values and heroic historical traditions of the City to promote, develop the image, brand and raise the international position of Ho Chi Minh City.
Fourth, further promote people-to-people diplomacy and work with overseas Vietnamese. With the strength of close relationships with the overseas Vietnamese community, people-to-people diplomacy and community work should continue to be a priority in the City's foreign affairs.
Fifth, build an increasingly professional local foreign affairs apparatus in terms of staff, working methods, approaches, and style, facilities, and organization.
Sixth, continue to effectively implement the Coordination Regulation between the Party Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Standing Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee; in which the City closely coordinates with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to enhance foreign affairs and international integration at the local level, effectively implementing the City's Strategy to Enhance Foreign Affairs to 2030 with a vision to 2045.
Political diplomacy leads, economic diplomacy is the focus
Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai respectfully thanked and seriously accepted the Deputy Prime Minister's direction and affirmed that he would direct and organize the implementation quickly and promptly.
"The six orientations the Deputy Prime Minister mentioned are profound opinions, not only having practical significance for the City's foreign affairs but also important orientations, tasks, and solutions in the process of building and developing the socio-economic development of Ho Chi Minh City," Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai shared.
Affirming that Ho Chi Minh City always identifies foreign affairs as an important task, contributing to the development of the City in particular and the whole country in general, the Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee said that foreign affairs tasks do not only belong to the assigned specialized agencies but also to the entire political system of the City.
Expressing his desire to be assigned many specific tasks and receive support from the Central Government to shoulder the common mission in the era of national development, Mr. Phan Van Mai emphasized that the City will focus on doing well the political diplomacy task, to contribute to consolidating and enhancing the image of the City and the country; leading and creating conditions for other foreign affairs pillars to develop.
Besides, Ho Chi Minh City identifies economic diplomacy as the center, serving not only the City but also the Southern Key Economic Zone and the whole country.
In addition, focusing on investment to strongly develop cultural diplomacy is also a priority in the City's foreign affairs work in the coming time.
"With soft power, we consider cultural diplomacy an increasingly important component, a new driving force of foreign affairs, gradually emerging and taking on a much larger role than before," said Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai, adding that the goal the City has set is to become the cultural industrial center of Vietnam and ASEAN by 2030.
Source: https://baotainguyenmoitruong.vn/pho-thu-tuong-bui-thanh-son-tphcm-can-neu-cao-tinh-than-doi-moi-tien-phong-hoi-nhap-384512.html
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