Overseas Vietnamese to enjoy one price in Vietnam
Ha Noi, Jan. 19 (VNA) -- Overseas Vietnamese will pay the same for services and public transport as homeland Vietnamese, says the Foreign Ministry's Commission for Overseas Vietnamese.
The change is part of the effort to encourage more investment from overseas Vietnamese.
Commission Chairman Nguyen Dinh Bin says the one-price policy is likely to be applied in the first quarter of this year.
About 300,000 overseas Vietnamese returned home in the first nine months of 2000 (about 20,000 people more than in all 1999. The number was reported at 500,000 in 2000 when remittances by overseas Vietnamese to their relatives increased to USD 2 billion against USD 1.2 billion in 1999.
Overseas Vietnamese have invested USD 200,000 in 50 projects under the Foreign Investment Law and some VND 470 billion (USD 34 million) in 400 other projects under the Law for Domestic Investment Promotion, which also applies to Vietnamese of dual citizenship.
The achievements are attributed to the simplification of the licensing process, the grant of more incentives to overseas Vietnamese, and the improvement and revision of relevant regulations, including those for encouraging intellectuals to repatriate.
Overseas Vietnamese now can buy houses and transfer the right to own assets held in the names of relatives.
The Government is cooperating with the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, in a scheme known as the Transfer of Knowledge through Expatriate Nationals (Tokten) to map a plan to have Vietnamese nationals living abroad work in their homeland for an agreed time.--VNA
