The HCMC People’s Committee has again chosen Saigontourist Holding Company to organize festivities in the downtown area to welcome New Year and Lunar New Year 2010. Saigontourist will arrange Nguyen Hue Flower Street, Banh Tet (traditional sticky rice cake) and fireworks displays.

This year Nguyen Hue, Le Loi, Le Duan and Dong Khoi streets will be decorated in lights from December 18 to January 5 and from February 2 to February 21 for the Lunar New Year.

A special program to ring in New Year 2010 will take place from 21:30 p.m. on December 31 to 0:30 a.m. on January 1.

The organizing committee will organize artistic light displays on some buildings on Nguyen Hue Boulevard. One more music program will also take place on a stage in front of the Sunwah building on the boulevard.

Nguyen Hue Flower Street 2010 will go on display from February 11 to 16. A pedestrian-only street on Le Loi Boulevard will be opened to allow people to enjoy performances of traditional music, and folk games.

Like last year, the organizing committee will organize contests to make banh tet and the best cakes will be used to worship Hung Kings on the last day of the year. Then, Saigontourist will join hands with the municipal Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs to give 10,000 pieces of banh tet to poor children in the city.

Fireworks will be displayed at six locations on Lunar New Year’s Eve. For the festivities, Saigontourist is collecting flowers and other materials to build the flower street. Last year, around 100,000 flowerpots were used for the display.

The city government has been implementing the New Year and Lunar New Year programs since 2004 to entertain local people and those from other parts of the country and abroad.

The budget to organize the events will come from the city’s budget and contributions by businesses and other sources.