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The conference was held online.

Attending the webinar were members of the Executive Committee of the Association, representatives of leaders of the Department of the Americas, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Vietnam-Canada Friendship Association in Can Tho city and Tra Vinh province, and Nguyen Thi Hoi, former Ambassador of Vietnam to Canada who chaired the conference.

Nguyen Thi Thu Giang, general secretary of the association, said that in the first 6 months of the year, the association's activities had closely followed the guidelines and foreign policies of the Party and State mentioned at the XIII Party Congress.

Due to the complicated and unpredictable developments of the Covid-19 pandemic, the association adjusted its operation method from face-to-face to online, while contributing to strengthening friendship and cooperation between Vietnam and Canada with rich and diverse content.

Some notable activities included meeting to share information about Canadian education, sending congratulatory letters and visiting Canadian partners and friends on Canada Day, and maintaining regular contact and close cooperation with the Canadian Embassy in Hanoi.

In addition, the association also supports connecting Vietnamese businesses with Vietnam-Canada trade seminars, as well as supporting Vietnamese people and intellectuals in Canada to participate in domestic activities.

The association's members participated in supporting Vietnam's Covid Prevention and Control Fund with a total amount of VND12,500.000 (US$544). The Vietnam-Canada Friendship Association in Tra Vinh province, although also heavily affected by Covid-19, still maintains activities to promote and advise on studying in Canada, as well as conduct charitying and social entrepreneurship exchanges online.

A Webinar to review the work in the first 6 months of the year and implement the work tasks for the last 6 months of 2021.

Attending the webinar, Vu Le Thai Hoang, deputy director of the Americas Department,, said the association had been active and creative in finding new steps, new ways of doing things and achieving concrete results in promoting mutual understanding and cooperation between the two peoples of Vietnam and Canada.

He said that in the past 6 months, the official and direct dialogue mechanisms and delegation exchanges between the two countries had been interrupted due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, but concrete cooperation between the two sides still took place, especially in the field of economy-trade and security-defense cooperation.

It is forecaste that in the final 6 months of the year, the Covid-19 pandemic will continue to strongly affect all aspects of social life as well as international relations. The association needs to continue to promote flexibility and creativity to improve the effectiveness of people-to-people diplomacy with Canada, such as cooperation in sharing vaccines and drugs for Covid-19 treatment, supporting businesses of the two countries.

The participants also appreciated the results achieved by the association in the first 6 months of the year, and contributed ideas and initiatives to make the association's activities more effective and substantive.

In the last 6 months of the year, the association will continue to improve in the content and mode of operation to exploit potential in the relationship between the two countries. On the basis of promoting the initiative, flexibility, creativity, and improving the efficiency of external activities, the association will continue to promote people-to-people friendship exchanges and mobilize humanitarian aid. The association will develop a specific action plan on the basis of ideas and initiatives given at the webinar and organize their implementation fully.

The main activities of the association in the last 6 months of the year are organizing the 4th Congress, term 2021-2026 and launching the Vietnamese Alumni Club in Canada. Regarding external relations, the Association plans to organize a number of activities to support and connect businesses of the two countries to recover and develop after the pandemic as well as to cooperate and share experiences in responding to the pandemic.

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