Delegates at the event (Photo: baoquocte.vn)
Along with the National Day, the Lunar New Year Festival for the community is one of the two most important annual events for Vietnamese representative agencies and is the desire of all overseas Vietnamese people who do not have the opportunity to reunite with their families. This is also an opportunity for the Embassy to introduce to the local community and international friends the traditional beauty and cultural essence of the country and people of Vietnam.
Due to the COVID-19 disease and the embassy's work, the Lunar New Year Festival this year was held later, instead of before the Lunar New Year Festival as usual. However, the bustling atmosphere, traditional dishes on Tet, and the brilliant colors of traditional costumes created a very familiar feeling.
At the event, Vietnamese Ambassador to India Pham Sanh Chau delivered Tet greetings from the General Secretary and State President Nguyen Phu Trong to all overseas Vietnamese people in India. He hoped that they would continue together to overcome the pandemic, unite, and actively contribute to promoting the cooperation and people-to-people relations between the two countries.
On this occasion, Ambassador Pham Sanh Chau shared his joy with overseas Vietnamese, congratulated and honored the staff of the embassy, who faced many difficulties last year but still excellently completed their mission, contributing to further promoting the relationship between Vietnam and India.
In the context of the embassy having officials and their family members infected with COVID-19, everyone was calm, united and shared to overcome the crisis together. Over the past year, in response to the new situation, the embassy has rapidly transformed its activities to be online, combining different modes of exchange to maintain and promote relations.
In 2020, the Vietnamese Embassy in India has fulfilled a lot of great responsibilities, contributing to the goal of strengthening the Vietnam-India Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
In particular, the embassy well coordinated with the Indian side to organize the visit to India by Vice State President Dang Thi Ngoc Thinh in February 2020, the High-Level Talk between the two Prime Ministers in December 2020 and the 17th meeting of the Joint Committee on Trade, Economic, Science and Technology Cooperation co-chaired by Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh and Foreign Minister S. Jaishanka in August 2020 via the Internet.
In addition, along with the efforts of its staff, the embassy achieved many breakthrough achievements such as reaching an agreement on the construction of an Uncle Ho statue in New Delhi; convincing the Indian Government to grant additional 300m2 of land for the construction of the headquarters of the Vietnamese Embassy; making important progress in campaigning for appointing Vietnamese honorary consuls in India’s localities; successfully rescuing 62 pepper containers of Vietnamese enterprises stuck in Nepal and India; and promoting many cooperation programs in the fields of security, national defense, science and technology.
Despite harsh lockdown measures in the locality, the embassy has organized 5 flights, safely bringing nearly 1,000 Vietnamese people from South Asia and Middle East-North Africa to Vietnam to avoid the COVID-19 pandemic./.