"Sacred Night" program at Hoa Lo Prison, Hanoi's famous tourist site. Photo: VNA /CVN

The high-level colloquium entitled "Consultation on the initiative: Hanoi - Creative City" saw the presence of the secretary of the Municipal Party Committee, Vuong Dinh Hue; the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the National Committee of UNESCO, Le Hoai Trung; the Deputy Minister of Science and Technology, Bui The Duy; the Chief Representative of UNESCO in Vietnam, Michael Croft; and ambassadors, representatives of other ministries and international organizations in Vietnam.
The title of Hanoi's "Creative City" of Design and its new directions for the development of the city have attracted great attention from the international community.
Hanoi will implement its commitments through programs and a long-term action plan on vision and policy connection, helping to build a creative city, Vuong Dinh Hue said.
This is a good opportunity for Hanoi to promote its image to become a creative hub in the region, he added.
Michael Croft believed that after joining the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, Hanoi could expand cooperation and exchanges with other Creative Design Cities such as Seoul (Republic of Korea), Singapore, Kobe (Japan) , Shanghai (China), Bandung (Indonesia), Helsinki (Sweden), Montreal (Canada), Berlin (Germany) and Turin (Italy).
Among the prospects offered by the Network, decentralized cooperation is the most important for Hanoi, he stressed.
On October 302019 Hanoi was designated by UNESCO as a "city of design" among the 66 "creative cities" selected. In addition to design, the UNESCO Creative Cities Network covers six other creative fields (crafts and folk arts, digital arts, cinema, gastronomy, literature and music).
The municipal authorities have set up several projects to promote creativity, such as the pedestrian areas around Hoan Kiem Lake, the Heritage Space contemporary art center, the Phung Hung fresco district. The program "The quintessences of the villages of trades" allows to promote traditional craftsmanship and contemporary know-how.
The ceramic village of Bat Trang has been selected to participate in the program "The quintessences of craft villages". The ceramists' workshops have been opened to the public and space has been reserved for meetings between artists and fine arts students. This program of meeting between artisans and the public should be multiplied in other craft villages.
By joining the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, Hanoi undertakes to promote innovation and cultural industries, to develop access to and participation in cultural life, and to integrate culture into urban development plans. .
The UNESCO Creative Cities Network was established in 2004 and now consists of 246 cities.
The network covers seven creative fields: crafts and folk arts, digital arts, cinema, design, gastronomy, literature, and music.
The Creative Cities Network is a privileged partner of UNESCO, both as a platform for reflection on the role of creativity as a lever for sustainable development, and as a laboratory for action and innovation, in particular for the implementation of implementation of the sustainable development agenda for 2030.
The member cities come from all continents and all regions, and fit into diverse socio-economic and demographic contexts. All members pursue a common mission: to place creativity and the creative economy at the heart of their urban development plans in favor of safe, resilient, inclusive and sustainable cities, in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Program in the 2030 horizon.
VNA /CVN