Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung asked the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) to continue its leadership in reflecting current events and issues inside and outside the country quickly and accurately with its own television channel that he launched on August 25.

Following a two-month test run, the channel officially made its public debut with its name “VNEWS” saying it all, just news.

VNEWS marks an important milestone in VNA’s roadmap to operate as a communications consortium. It also heralds VNA’s 65 th founding anniversary (Sept. 15).

“This is a significant event in the nation’s press and communications activities as it affirms VNA’s role in the new circumstance and in serving the Party’s leadership and instruction and the State’s management and execution, and meeting the people’s needs for information,” he said.

PM Dung affirmed that the Party and the State will continue to support and assist VNA in accomplishing its assigned tasks successfully.

He asked relevant ministries, central agencies, provinces, cities, economic groups and enterprises to provide VNA with official information promptly and accurately as required so that the newswire agency can inform the local and foreign public officially and quickly.

PM Dung said he hopes that with its established tradition and the launch of its own TV channel, VNA will continue performing well in its role as the strategic information centre of the Party, the official news agency of the State and the trusted spokesman of the Government.

VNA Director-General Tran Mai Huong said VNEWS will broadcast throughout the day with constantly updated current events and latest news in all fields including political, economics, cultural and social.

Tasked as one of VNA’s key information units, the channel will, through its special programmes such as “Feedback”, “Breaking News” and “Reporters’ Prism”, broadcast information that reflects and defends the Party and State’s viewpoints and at the same time rejects and corrects false information and wrong opinions against the Party and State, noted the VNA senior official.

Huong expressed hope that by applying cutting-edge technologies and utilizing the father company’s strength, VNEWS will become one of the reliable conduits to receive and disseminate information from Party and State leaders, as well as from government ministries, sectors and businesses to viewers inside and outside the country.

With almost 1,000 reporters and sub-editors present across the country and in nearly 30 countries around the world and a variety of press publications of all media types, VNA is poised to develop into a strong national communications group in the development trend of the modern press.

VNEWS broadcasts will be on the VCTV, HTV-BTS, HCTV, SCTV, Nacencom, and IPTV on the Vietnam Post and Telecommunications Corporation’s MyTV.

The channel will be present on Kplus (K+) – a satellite digital television network under the logo “TTXVN”, on cable TV systems run by different provinces and cities, and on digital TV service packages.

Broadcasts will also be launched directly and kept at the website: http://vnews.vnanet.vn./.