VNA General Director Nguyen Duc Loi speaks at the meeting. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) –The State-run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs held a meeting in Hanoi on July 30 between VNA departments and heads of Vietnam’s overseas representative agencies appointed and nominated this year, aiming to improve the efficiency of cooperation in the external information work in the time ahead.
The meeting saw the attendance of VNA General Director Nguyen Duc Loi and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Nguyen Quoc Dung.
In his remarks, Loi said the 75-year-old VNA operates under the consortium model with 16 news units for domestic and foreign service, and more than 60 information products in the forms of text, photo, TV, radio, infographics and multimedia, using 10 languages of Vietnamese, English, French, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, Lao and Khmer.
The Government has designated the VNA as the key national external information agency, and its three products, the electronic newspaper Vietnam Plus, the English-language daily Viet Nam News and the multi-language photo magazine Vietnam Pictorial as national press products for foreign service.
The agency publishes about 1,500 articles weekly in English, Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian on its portal vnanet.vn and e-newspaper vietnamplus.vn, along with daily English and Chinese news programmes, and weekly French and Spanish news programmes via its TV channel.
The Press Photography Department publishes photos with captions in English, featuring political and social events daily on the www.vnanet.vn portal.
One of the agency’s advantages is a network of 90 domestic and foreign bureaus, Loi said, adding that 30 bureaus are based in 28 countries, with about 80 journalists.
The VNA aims to become a multimedia news agency to serve as a reliable source of information for press agencies at home and abroad, and the public as well, he added.
Loi lauded the whole-hearted and effective support of Vietnamese representative agencies abroad for the VNA’s overseas bureaus, and expressed his hope that leaders of the Foreign Ministry and head of the Vietnamese representative agencies abroad will continue with their close coordination and assistance to VNA correspondents, especially at major events.
Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Foreign Minister Dung underlined the close relations between the ministry and the VNA, as well as the VNA’s overseas bureaus and Vietnamese representative agencies abroad.
He urged the sides to continue with information exchange in order to better perform their assigned political tasks, and help international friends understand more about guidelines and polices of the Party and the State.
Head of the Vietnamese representative agencies abroad pledged to further coordinate with the VNA and facilitate the operation of its correspondents./.
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