(VOVworld) – The Foreign Ministry of Vietnam held an online conference in Hanoi on Tuesday to review last year’s external relations activities of provinces and centrally-run cities across the country and set out tasks for this year.

Deputy FM Ho Xuan Son at the online meeting

In 2014, Vietnam reached many achievements in expanding external relations which contributed to maintaining national peace, stability, independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

Vietnam and the provinces in particular, took advantage of foreign resources to boost local socio-economic development and relations between Vietnam and its partners.

Deputy foreign minister Ho Xuan Son underlined key tasks for the provinces this year: “in regard to international issues, we should pay attention to economic diplomacy. It means we should call for more direct foreign investment, and increase tourism trade promotion, this support of foreign non-governmental organizations and make the best use of the resources from overseas Vietnamese. It’s also important for us to improve the apparatus and quality of personnel and strengthen cooperation between external relations offices and the relevant agencies.”