Vietnam News Agency (VNA), VNA Deputy Director General Lê Quốc Minh. — VNA/VNS PhotoMinh Quyết

In an interview ahead of the ceremony, to be held at the VNA’s headquarters in Hà Nội today, Minh noted VNA proposed organising a contest for external information service, as press works of this type are not included in the national awards.

The four major media agencies in the country – the VNA, Vietnam Television, the Voice of Vietnam and Nhân Dân (People) newspaper – have been assigned to organise the awards on a rotary basis.

The VNA hosted the first edition of the awards in 2014 and the second time this year.

The VNA Deputy Director General highlighted the contribution of the State-run news agency to the awards, considering the fact that the agency has nearly 10 units engaged in external information service.

He said the VNA submitted about 200 out of 900-1,000 entries to the awards and won some 20 prizes each year, about one fourth of the total number of prizes.  

Minh, who is deputy head of the steering board of the 2018 National External Information Service Awards, said that besides domestic journalists, the contest has attracted the participation of an increasing number of foreign journalists who wrote in different languages such as English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Russian and Korean.
Of note, the 2018 awards had received an entry from a Mongolian author, he said, adding that articles written by foreign journalists and published on foreign newspapers would have greater influence on foreign audience. Therefore, apart from honouring domestic journalists working for the external information services, the awards aim to engage more foreign reporters in writing more about Việt Nam, thus improving the efficiency of external information service, he stressed.
The 2018 contest has received nearly 1,000 entries in 13 languages. Around 30 contestants/groups of contestants are foreigners or Vietnamese living abroad. — VNS