The Steering Committee for the Central Highlands region has urged the Vietnam News Agency to publish a special publication to serve as the official information channel for the Steering Committees of the Central Highlands, the Northwestern and the Southwestern regions.

Tran Viet Hung, Vice Permanent Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Central Highlands region made the request at a working session with the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) in the Central Highlands province of Dak Lak on August 14.

He said such a publication will also serve as a forum for officials and people in the three regions, contributing to local socio-economic development as well as to security and social order.

Vice chairman Hung said VNA’s coverage of the three region is extensive and diverse, highlighting many latest issues of public concerns.

The vice chairman also asked the VNA to ensure the distribution of the agency’s Tin Tuc Weekend and other publications to readers in the region, in line with an agreement on information cooperation signed between the State-run news agency and the steering committees for the country’s three strategic regions in May this year.

Following the agreement’s signing, VNA’s news departments, newspapers and television channel have extend their coverage of the three regions and the operation of the three steering committees. The Tin Tuc Weekend newspaper has also run a column dedicated exclusively to the three regions.

The steering committee for the Central Highlands has asked regional provinces to create favourable conditions for VNA correspondents to perform their tasks, and provide accurate and full information to the agency.

The VNA was established in 1945. Besides supplying text and image reports to subscribed users, the agency has 40 different publications in both Vietnamese and foreign languages, including the electronic multi-language newspaper Vietnam Plus, the English language newspaper Viet Nam News, the Tin Tuc (News) daily, the The Thao & Van Hoa (Sports and Culture) daily, the French language Le Courrier du Vietnam weekly and the multi-language Vietnam Pictorial magazine. The news agency also runs its own television channel – the VNEWS. It has a staff of over 2,300 employees working in 63 bureaus in cities and provinces nationwide, and 30 bureaus overseas.-VNA