Welcome speech

By h.e. dr. tran chien thang, vice-minister

Ministry of culture, sports and tourism of vietnam
At the asem seminar on Preserving and promoting
the diversity of cultural expressions
sofitel metropole Hanoi hotel
15 December 2008
Dear
Mr.
Sean
DOYLE,
Ambassador,
European
Commission Delegation to Vietnam,
Mr.Dominque
Girard,
Ambassador.
Executive
Director of Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF)
Mrs. Anna de Oliveira Silva, representatives of
the UNESCO Secretariat,
Distinguished delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a great honor and pleasure for me to act on
behalf of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism
of Vietnam and in my own name to be present at the
ASEM
Seminar
on
preserving
and
promoting
the
Diversity of Cultural Expressions: Sharing Asian and
European Experiences. I would like, first of all, to
convey my warmest regards and best wishes to all of
you, the distinguished delegates, who have come to
Vietnam for participating in this very meaningful
event.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
We believe that cultural diversity and the
diversified cultural expressions are among the most
wonderful and precious treasures of mankind built up
in the process of human development. Cultural
diversity creates the identities, which differ a
nation or an ethnic group from others and makes our
world more colorful and more beautiful. Many of us
agree that culture is considered as the whole complex
of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and
emotional features that characterize each nation
throughout the length of history and that have made a
distinctive image of each country and served as
spiritual foundation and motivating forces for social
development. The globalization and integration should
go along with the preserving, safeguarding and
1

promoting the values of national cultural identity

and at the same time to enhance the international
cultural exchange in order to absorb the best nuances
of world culture to enrich ones national culture.
This point view has its place in the UNESCO
convention on Protection and Promotion of Cultural
diversity and Expression and this explains why
Vietnam is active in the process of formulating,
signing
and
ratification
of
this
important
Convention.
We are happy to acknowledge that since the first
ASEM Cultural Ministers Meeting held in Beijing in
2004 up to the present, the ASEM Member countries
have gone through a long path and achieved a
remarkably good result starting from recognition of
cultural diversity to making policies and concrete
action plans on promoting cultural diversity. We
recognize the extremely important contribution of
ASEM Member countries during the arguing, discussing,
formulating and approving the UNESCO Convention on
the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of
Cultural Expressions. We are delighted to inform you
that the President of the Socialist Republic of
Vietnam signed the ratification of this important
document on August 7th 2007.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
At the national level, the Government of Vietnam
implements a number of policies to ensure the equal
and diversified development of cultures of all major
and ethnic minorities. Vietnam has 54 nationalities
and ethnic groups with distinctive identities and
different
levels
of
material,
spiritual
and
intellectual development. The mission of Vietnam
cultural policy is to preserve and promote the
diversifying development of cultural expressions of
all nationalities, social groups and individuals in
the unity of the whole Vietnamese culture. At
present, ASEAN member countries are in the process of
formulating strategies and action plans aiming at
realizing the ASEAN Socio-cultural community by 2015.
The ASEAN common commitment is also to build, develop
and promote the diversity in unity of ASEAN
cultures. In this regard, we highly appreciate the
2

initiative of organizing the ASEM seminar to exchange

views and experiences among Asian and European
countries
on
preserving
and
promoting
cultural
diversity in each country. Being an active actor in
cultural cooperation, two weeks ago, in November 26th
-27th , 2008, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and
Tourism of Vietnam in cooperation with the Embassy of
Sweden organized a conference with the theme:
Cultural Policy: Asian and European Perspectives
which gathered more than 60 delegates representing
cultural policy makers, administrator, researchers
and managers from ASEAN member countries, the ASEAN
Secretariat, China, Republic of Korea and some
European partners such as Sweden, Finland and the
United Kingdom etc. At this conference, Vietnam has
shared its experiences in the cultural policy review
process followed the model of the Council of Europe
as an input for a wider deliberation and discussion
on many other important issues of cultural policy
such as creative industry, cultural tourism policy,
cultural
heritage
safeguarding,
minority
and
diversity policies
It is our hope that this ASEM Seminar will once
again provide an opened forum for discussion on
essential cultural issues and reaffirm the need and
importance of the UNESCO Convention. It is of our
expectation that it will give impulsion to push
forward the process of ratification of the Convention
on protection and promotion of the diversity of
cultural expressions.
May I wish the success to the Seminar and wish
you all have the most pleasant time in Ha Noi.
Thank you for your attention.