Vietnam News Agency (VNA) and the Steering Committees for the Northwestern, Central Highlands and Southwestern regions signed an agreement on information coordination for the 2013-16 period in Hanoi on May 23.

Attending the signing ceremony were Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, head of the Steering Committee for the Northwestern region, Minister of Public Security Tran Dai Quang, head of the Steering Committee for the Central Highlands region, Deputy Prime Minister Vu Van Ninh, head of the Central Committee for the Southwestern region and VNA Director General Nguyen Duc Loi.

Under the agreement, VNA will strengthen its work with the three Steering Committees in popularising information on policies and laws of the Communist Party of Vietnam and State as well as the Steering Committees’ operation to promote socio-economic and cultural development, poverty reduction, and security-defence assurance in the three regions.

The four sides will reinforce cooperation to provide accurate, objective, comprehensive and timely information about the socio-economic and cultural development in the three regions, while rejecting distorted or untrue information from hostile forces , contributing to maintaining security and defence, as well as people’s trust in the Party and local authorities, and consolidating national unity.

The three Steering Committees will create favourable conditions for VNA correspondents in localities and provide VNA with timely information related to the Northwestern, Central Highlands and Southwestern regions.

Speaking at the event, VNA Director General Loi said that as an official national news channel and a trusted and strategic information centre of the Party and State, the agency has completed its political task well, including providing overall and accurate information in all fields on domestic and international issues to all people.

VNA will work closely with the above-mentioned regions to make information on the three regions more satisfactory and systematic in all VNA publications, including text and image reports, television, printed and electronic newspapers, including those published in foreign languages and ethnic minority languages.

Under the agreement, the agency will also begin a special column in the Tin Tuc Weekend newspaper to update information about the three regions.-VNA