Dich: Chính sách ngôn ngữ và ảnh hưởng của nó tới sự hội nhập và sự phát triển của thị trường lao động Việt Nam Assoc. Prof. Dr. Phan Van Que, Hanoi Open University Introduction Since 1986, with the open door policy, Vietnam has been integrating successfully into the world community and at the same time into the world market. Due to economic, political and social changes, there are definitely new and growing linguistic needs and demands. The move from an agricultural society to becoming a society where services are the dominant activity, and the change toward a knowledge-based society, together with increasing internationalisation leads to the need to have a careful and closer look at foreign languages policies in connection with the labour market. Establishing future training needs of the labour market in developing countries is a difficult task that has faced manpower analysts and educational planners elsewhere. There is no easy solution because no one can forecast the future and, therefore, what labour demands are likely anymore than one can future economic growth rates. However, there is always a body of facts, evidence and experience available for policy makers, including foreign language policy makers. Foreign language policies thus are an integral part of a bigger task: manpower planning. All foreign languages have to speak the language of the market, that is the language of demand and supply. Manpower planning is largely concerned with labour supply. Thus it is interested in such questions as how many people are coming into the labour market, what are their education and training levels etc. It is largely concerned in determining what training needs there are so that the labour supply can be shaped to meet the demands of the economy. Manpower planning is also concerned with supply policies and, in particular, implications for education and training. Inevitably, this has to concentrate on education and training policies, among them foreign languages policies. This is a huge task, then it is not only confined to the Ministry of Labour or Ministry of Education and Training, it is also concerned with human resource planning in the Ministry of Planning or Ministry of Finance. It concerns the whole society and it needs concerted actions. Addressing the issue, this paper will first have a broad look at the functions of foreign languages in the international market. Then it will attempt to produce a look closer at the demand for foreign languages in the context of Vietnam. After that, it will attempt to present the situation of foreign languages learning and teaching in Vietnam and existing foreign language policies. Finally and also most importantly, it will try to make some recommendations concerning foreign language policies in a larger context of manpower planning.