Saigontourist Holding Company has again been assigned to organize main festivities in the center of HCMC to ring in the forthcoming Lunar New Year, or Tet 2011, according to a plan approved by the HCMC government on Monday.

Highlights of the week-long festival will, as usual, be Nguyen Hue Flower Street, a contest to make Banh Tet (traditional sticky rice cake), light decorations along main streets, fireworks display, and an extravaganza of music and light shows.

According to the plan, the light decorations program will kick off first, lighting up four main streets of Nguyen Hue, Dong Khoi, Le Loi and Le Duan from December 17 to January 4 to celebrate the New Year. This program will be repeated from January 26 to February 13 for the Lunar New Year.

The light show on the walls of some buildings like Sunwah and Palace, and an outdoor music program in front of the Sunwah building is the second festivity for the New Year celebration.

Another traditional program is the Banh Tet making contest, which will take place from January 26 to 31 to select the best cakes as token offerings to the Hung Kings and to produce 10,000 banh tet cakes for poor people to enjoy Tet.

The core activity of the festival is the Nguyen Hue Flower Street on Nguyen Hue Boulevard, which will open for seven days from January 31 to February 6.

Saigontourist as the organizing committee has started its preparations for the festival.