Seminar highlights President Ho Chi Minh as symbol of peace

The event, which was held in hybrid format, is part of activities to mark the 134th birthday of the late leader, who was honoured by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) as a Hero of National Liberation and a Great Man of Culture of Vietnam.

Addressing the seminar, Ambassador Duong Hai Hung said the event aims to highlight the importance of the late leader and his ideology to the Doi moi (renewal) process that Vietnam has carried out over the past 40 years, which has transformed the economy into one of the 40 largest in the world. The seminar also provided more information of the time that President Ho Chi Minh lived and worked in Italy in the 1930s, which helped deepen the close relationship between the two countries.

According to Professor Le Van Loi, Vice President of HCMA, the collaboration between Vietnam and Italy in researching and spreading the ideology of Ho Chi Minh as well as other great men of culture in the world is a practical way to improve mutual understanding and trust towards promoting friendly and cooperative relations.

Sandra Scagliotti, Honorary Consul of Vietnam and President of the Italy-Vietnam Friendship Association in Piedmont affirmed that President Ho Chi Minh is a symbol of peace and the friendship between Vietnam and the world. Scagliotti, who is also Director of the Centre for Vietnam Studies in Turin city expressed her hope that more information about the late leader’s time in Italy will be collected.

At the seminar, General Secretary of the Italian Communist Party Mauro Alboresi said that Ho Chi Minh's ideology, along with Marxism-Leninism, has become a reference source for the entire international communist movement, including that in Italy. Italian communists are very interested in the ideology that has been guiding the Vietnamese communists, in seeking an alternative to the capitalist system, building a modern socialist society, with the happiness of the people as the primary goal, he added.