The conference was presided by Deputy Prime Minister Trương Hòa Bình, Minister of Home Affairs Lê Vĩnh Tân, Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Nguyễn Trọng Thừa and Chairman of the GCRA Vũ Chiến Thắng.

The event also saw the participation of Vice Chairmen of the GCRA Bùi Thanh Hà, Dương Ngọc Tấn, Trần Tấn Hùng, and representatives of the provincial-level committee for religious affairs from all provinces and cities across the country.

Chairman Vũ Chiến Thắng delivers opening speech

As reported at the conference, over the past year, the State administration on religious affairs have actively disseminated the new law on belief and religion passed by National Assembly last November to state officials and followers of religions and worked closely with concerning authorities for satisfactorily addressing practical issues relating religion.

The GCRA has drafted two decrees for guiding the implementation of the law on Belief and Religion, in which the draft decree on detailing and providing measures for the implementation of the Law is to be approved  by the government in the coming days, before the law taking effect on January 1, 2018.

The conference also pointed out remaining problems and practical issues related to the state administrations on religious affairs, including religion-related land and activities abusing religion for disturbing public order and national security.

The conference also recorded valuable comments from provinces and cities regarding the organizations structure of state administration on religious affairs, incentives provided for officials working on religious affairs sector, etc.

Deputy Prime Minister Trương Hòa Bình speaks at the conference

Addressing the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Trương Hòa Bình stressed the need to ensure the consistent implementation of Party and State policies on religious and the law on belief and religion throughout country. The Government leader also highlighted the propaganda and mobilization work for consolidating unity between religions as well as unity between religious and non-religion people. The Deputy Prime MInister called on the religious affairs sectors to create favorable conditions for religions to promote moral values and contribute more to socio-economic development in the country.

On the occasion, 63 groups and 125 individuals from the provincial-level committee for religious affairs received certificates of merit from the GCRA for their outstanding contributions to the State administration sector on religious affairs in 2017.

PH