Present at the working meeting included Director of the GCRA’s Institute for Studies of Religious Policy Lê Thị Liên, Deputy Director of the provincial home affairs department of Bac Ninh Trần Trung Chính, and representatives from the GCRA’s departments of Protestant affairs, international relations and legislation and inspection and information center, and concerning provincial departments and agencies of Bac Ninh.

As reported at the meeting, implementing the new belief and religious law in the last three years, concerning provincial authorities of Bac Ninh have organized 84 dissemination meetings on the new law and Decree 162 and distributed 8,284 dissemination materials to 8,284 meeting participants who are key followers of religions in the province.

For the last three years, there have been 119 cases of ordainments and appointments of dignitaries and deacons of religious organizations in the province registered with concerning local authorities of Bac Ninh.

In regard to social charities in the three-year period, two major religious organizations of Buddhism and Catholicism in Bac Ninh have presented 33,639 gifts sets, valued at over 31.6 billion VND in total, to people with disabilities, poor families, state policy beneficiaries and other disadvantaged people in the localities on occasion of Buddha’s Birthday, Christmas, Buddhist Parents’ Day, Lunar New Year, etc.  

Up to now, 94.5% of all 664 pieces of land with the total of 178.1 ha owned by 651 Buddhist and Catholic worshipping establishments have been given certificates for the land-use right.

There have been 51 worshipping facilities belonging to organizations of Catholicism (3) and Buddhism and other folk beliefs (48) have been upgraded or renovated, of which four construction facilities have been carried without permission.

 Dr. Lê Thị Liên, Director of Institute for Religious Policy Studies speaks at the meeting

During the meeting Dr. Lê Thị Liên, Director of Institute for Religious Policy Studies spoke highly of achievements in the implementation of the law on belief and religion recorded in Bac Ninh in the last three years, and stressed the need to timely solve practical issues for meeting legitimate needs of religious people and organizations, contributing to prevent religion-related complications.

The northern province of Bac Ninh currently has two major religions of Buddhism and Catholicism, with 15,000 Catholic followers and Buddhists accounting for 25% of the provincial populations, and a total of 1,540 places of worship belonging to Buddhism, Catholicism and folk beliefs.