Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has given the nod to a new regulation allowing overseas Vietnamese and their families to enter Vietnam without visas as of September 1.

However, overseas Vietnamese and their spouse and children must still obtain a visa exemption certificate, which allows multiple entries and a stay of up to three months at a time.

Vietnam Visa Exemption

The certificate will be valid five years.

To obtain the certificates, overseas Vietnamese are required to submit one of the three following documents at an official representative office in their country of residence:

• a document (such as a birth certificate) from a Vietnamese agency that proves they are ethnically Vietnamese;
• a guarantee by an overseas Vietnamese association based in the country in which they reside or by a Vietnamese citizen; or
• a document from an authorized foreign agency certifying that they are ethnically Vietnamese.

Husbands, wives and children of Vietnamese people living abroad will also need to submit documents that prove their relationship to the Vietnamese member of their immediate family.

Expecting a rush on representative offices abroad, the government’s Committee for Overseas Vietnamese has sent 200,000 visa exemption certificates to Vietnamese embassies overseas.

The move to exempt visas for overseas Vietnamese was announced by President Nguyen Minh Triet during his visit to the US in June.

According to the Committee for Overseas Vietnamese, there are currently close to three million overseas Vietnamese, most of whom have settled in the US, France, Australia and Canada. Around 500,000 overseas Vietnamese visit Vietnam each year.

Source: TTXVN - ThanhNien News - Read the original article here

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