By Park Hyong-ki
Staff Reporter
Hana Financial Group said it will expand its social contribution with primary focus on helping the second generation born from interracial marriages.
With the rise of inbound foreign laborers and interracial marriages, especially between Korean men and Vietnamese women, the country's third largest financial holding company stressed that social charity to foreigners or Korean-Vietnamese families is a matter concerning the betterment of society rather than the economy.
``Korea is becoming a multicultural country with the increase in Korea-Vietnamese households here, and the time is ripe for us to boost our social activities to culturally diverse families for social advancement,'' said Kim Seung-yu, the chairman and CEO of Hana Financial Group, at a press conference.
Hana and the Vietnamese Embassy in Seoul celebrated their first ``Vietnam-Korea Family Day'' at the consular office Sunday, for hundreds of Vietnamese-Korean couples and their children. This year marks the 15th year of diplomatic ties between Korea and Vietnam.
Some 25,000 Vietnamese women came to Korea to tie the knot with Korean men so far. There are 35,000 Vietnamese workers and 2,000 students in the country.
Vietnamese Ambassador to Seoul Pham Tien Van said he will make extra efforts to provide comfort and care to both Vietnamese living in Korea as well as Koreans living in Vietnam.
``Helping them to be happy and comfortable through social services will further improve bilateral relations, while preventing misunderstanding between the two cultures,'' said the ambassador.
Kim said that Hana will expand its financial services to foreign laborers, especially on weekends since their tight schedules make it hard for them to visit banks on weekdays.
``We are planning to provide financial services _ as part of the company's social contributions _ on weekends in Ansan or other industrial complexes (in Gyeonggi Province) where a large number of foreigners are working,'' said the chairman.
Exemplifying that Koreans, too, once experienced hardship working overseas during the 1960s, Kim said that is why his interest in supporting foreigners and interracial marriages came about.
He added that it is now imperative for the country to adopt more friendly policies toward foreigners as the United Nations called on Korea to change its ethnocentric ways of thinking with the number of foreign residents growing to about one million.
Hana recently published children's books written in both Korean and Vietnamese so that Korean-Vietnamese parents can teach their kids about the two cultures in both languages.
The chairman said Hana plans to develop scholarship programs for the second generation, and is seeking its boards' approval.
Although the chairman refrained from saying much about Hana's future business plans in Vietnam as Sunday's event dealt more with social contribution, he noted that the group is interested in expanding in the Southeast Asian country's financial market.
``Like Mr. Ambassador said, Korea is the largest foreign investor in Vietnam whose economy is growing fast. We are, of course, interested,'' said Kim.