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 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 one’s national culture. This

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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 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

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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.