State President Nguyen Minh Triet attended a ceremony held in Hanoi on Oct. 9 to mark the 135th anniversary of World Post Day and launch the 39th Universal Post Union (UPU) Letter Writing Contest.

At the ceremony, the President handed over the silver medal and a certificate of merit granted by the 38th UPU Contest to Nguyen Dac Xuan Thao, a grade 7 student from Nguyen Hue Secondary School in the central city of Da Nang .

At the 2009 contest, with the theme “writing a letter to someone, explaining that good working conditions can ensure a better and happier life”, Thao, in the role of a child whose family is experiencing difficulties, wrote a letter to the State President, telling him about her father’s accident that paralysed him and left him in a wheelchair. She went on to ask the government leaders to come up with suitable policies and guidelines to reduce accidents at construction sites and factories.

Her entry defeated 1.5 million other entries to win first prize at the national letter writing contest and was translated into French before being sent to the UPU Contest and bringing back the silver medal.

The 39th UPU contest in 2010 will have the theme “writing a letter to someone to explain the importance of talking about AIDS and protecting oneself from the disease.”

Earlier on the same day, President Triet met with officials from the Vietnam National Post and Telecommunication Group (VNPT). He asked the group to improve its competitiveness in order to provide more convenient and low-cost services.

He also stressed the need to pay more attention to personnel training to increase the capacity of its staff.

He expressed the hope that the VNPT would further develop to catch up with other countries in the region and the world./.