The decision was made yesterday at a meeting between the two ministries, which also stated that the nine-day holiday would start and end three days earlier than last year.
"We can see from previous years that the holiday usually brings with it serious traffic jams and more accidents as people return home to reunite with their families," minister Thang said. "We could reduce traffic if we let people off earlier. In any case many people call in to work in order to prepare for Tet, so we should give them these days in order to boost consumption. Also, Tet ending earlier means that people have less of a chance for parties, which we hope will also help reduce the number of accidents caused by drunk drivers."
State employees will be off from January 28 to February 5, 2014 or from the lunar month of December 28 to the lunar month of January 6.
