On the evening of October 29 local time, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh, who was attending the 8th Future Investment Initiative Conference in Saudi Arabia and his wife met the staff of the Vietnamese Embassy and engineers working there.

Vietnamese Ambassador Dang Xuan Dung reported that Vietnamese workers in Saudi Arabia have become increasingly qualified and skilled. Among the attendees at the meeting were more than 20 individuals representing the group of Vietnamese engineers working for Ceer in Riyadh, the first Saudi Arabian electric vehicle brand, and engineers from the FPT Representative Office.

Some engineers who work at construction and oil and gas companies far away could not come to the meeting. 

The Vietnamese engineers at Ceer all have bachelor’s degree, master’s degree or PhDs and work in the most important links of the production line, such as design, experiments, quality assurance, vendor management, project management and goods buying. Their incomes are between $8,000 and $16,000, plus allowances.

“In the time to come, when experimental models are assembled and the factory officially becomes operational, the number of Vietnamese workers at the company will be increasing,” Dung said.

Hopes 

Hoang Thai Ngoc, a young engineer, said she hopes the Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) and Vietnamese businesses will think about exporting Vietnamese farm produce, such as dried vermicelli and noodles, fish sauce and fruits to Saudi Arabia. This will help develop Vietnam’s economy and improve the living standards of Vietnamese in the country.

She also proposed that the government pay attention to economic cooperation and bring more Vietnamese highly qualified workers to Saudi Arabia, especially when Ceer enters the mass production period and needs many skilled workers.

The wife of a Vietnamese engineer who has been living in Saudi Arabia said one group of Saudi Arabians knew very little about Vietnam, while another group had deep knowledge about Vietnam’s magnanimous past through social networks and tourism.

“We met a Saudi Arabian who graduated from university in the US. He knows Vietnam via its pho (noodle soup served with beef or chicken) and he likes the traditional dish, but he cannot find any restaurant that provides the dish in Riyadh,” she said.

“Another person, after visiting Vietnam, likes Vietnamese coffee very much and he wants to run a chain of Vietnamese coffee houses in Saudi Arabia,” she added.

“I am proud of being a citizen of Vietnam, one of the fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia, one of the most attractive destinations for tourists with famous heritages, original cultural and culinary values,” she said.

Another engineer said every Vietnamese thinks about the country when he or she is away from the homeland. He hopes that the Prime Minister will set favorable conditions for overseas Vietnamese workers to return to Vietnam to serve their country.

He said that discriminatory treatment is applied to Vietnamese and foreign engineers in many places in Vietnam, so many Vietnamese engineers have to work abroad. He hopes there will be the policies to create fairness and a good working environment.

He wants to buy a home in Vietnam, but the housing prices are too high. So he longs for solutions that can force the prices down, so that he can own a house in Vietnam and return to Vietnam to work.

“We are missing our homeland very much,” he said.

Direct flights to Saudi Arabia

Chinh expressed his deep emotion at the sincere words, concerns, thoughts and worries of the engineers who live far from the fatherland.

He said Vietnam and Saudi Arabia will continue to strengthen political trust and exchange delegations at all levels, striving to upgrade the relationship between the two nations. 

The countries are negotiating a free trade agreement and investment protection agreement, which will help boost cooperation in trade, investment, labor cooperation as well as oil and gas exploitation and processing, digital transformation, energy transition and Halal product development. These will give more favorable conditions to Vietnamese workers to live and work in Saudi Arabia.

Chinh has asked the Ministry of Transport, Vietnam Airlines and other air carriers to consider providing non-stop flights to Saudi Arabia.

Thu Hang