The leader of the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) has expressed the hope that VNA bureaus overseas would continue to receive assistance and cooperation from Vietnamese representative offices, to fulfil their assigned tasks and meet increasing information demand.

VNA General Director Tran Mai Huong made the statement at a working session with newly accredited Vietnamese ambassadors and chiefs of representative offices abroad, about to leave the country for their overseas missions, in Hanoi on March 11.

VNA needs the coordination to promote its foreign news service, transmit diversified information on Vietnam’s land and people to foreign and overseas Vietnamese readers, provide information to embassies’ websites and set up collaboration mechanisms in places where there are no VNA bureaus, said Huong.

Apart from the task of the national news agency in disseminating domestic, international and foreign affairs information, VNA now has new products: e-newspapers, mobile information and VNEWS channel, added the VNA General Director.

A total of 27 VNA bureaus overseas make up the agency’s key force which provides more than 3,500 international news items – stories, photos and visual and audio news – to 700 domestic press agencies every month, he elaborated.

Deputy Foreign Minister Nguyen Quoc Cuong, representative of the ambassadors and chief representatives’ delegation, highlighted the close cooperation between VNA and the Vietnamese Foreign Ministry and Vietnam’s rep. offices abroad.

Cuong, who is also Vietnamese Ambassador to the US, affirmed the importance of VNA’s domestic and foreign news sources in introducing Vietnam’s land, people and culture to foreign friends and vice versa.

He emphasised the need to enhance the coordination to further bring into play the foreign news service channel, particularly VNEWS channel.

A number of ambassadors and chief representatives suggested VNA publish books or issue CDs on Vietnam’s image.

With VNEWS channel, VNA could promote visual news on diplomatic and representative offices’ activities abroad and current news of foreign countries, they said./.