Hanoi (VNA) - The Party Central Committee’sCommission for Information and Education, the Steering Committee on ExternalInformation Work and the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) held a press conference onNovember 22 to announce the fifth edition of the National External Information Service Awards at the VNA headquarters.

The National External Information Service Awards 2018, organised by the PartyCentral Committee’s Commission for Information and Education, the SteeringCommittee on External Information Work and the VNA, honours outstandingauthors, press works and books in the external information sector. The VNA hasbeen selected to act as the standing agency of this year’s awards.

Speaking at the press conference, Bui Truong Giang, deputy head of the PartyCentral Committee’s Commission for Information and Education, and deputy headof the Steering Committee on External Information Work, affirmed that over theyears, the external information service has reaped positive results,contributing to maintaining political stability, serving socio-economic development,ensuring national defence-security and promoting international integration. Ithas also helped raise the prestige of Vietnam in the international arena andintroduce the country to international friends.

Notably, in 2018, Vietnam impressed the global community with the successfulhosting of several diplomatic events such as the World Economic Forum on ASEAN,the sixth Greater Mekong Sub-region Summit (GMS-6) and the 10thCambodia-Laos-Vietnam Development Triangle Summit (CLV-10), the 26th AnnualMeeting of the Asia-Pacific Parliamentary Forum (APPF-26) and the sixthAssembly of the Global Environment Fund.

The annual National External Information Service Awards, launched in 2014, havebeen participated in by many journalists from both domestic and internationalpublications.

In 2017, the organising board received 970 entries in forms ranging from printnewspaper articles, online articles, radio broadcasts, television broadcasts,press photos, landscape photos and books. The works were published in 15languages including Vietnamese, English, French, Russian, Chinese, Spanish,Japanese, Korean, Lao, Khmer, Thai and Bulgarian.  Contestants were diverse, includingjournalists and collaborators of domestic and foreign press agencies, experts,researchers, photographers, Vietnamese representative agencies abroad andforeign representative agencies in Vietnam. The organising board awarded 67works, including seven first, 15 second, 18 third and 27 consolation prizes.

VNA Deputy General Director Le Quoc Minh, deputy head of the steering board forthe National External Information Service Awards 2018, said this is the secondtime the VNA has been selected to be the standing agency of the awards afterthe first in 2014, making it the first press agency to host the event twice. Thedouble number of submissions after four years, the addition of a new genre –book, the plentiful forms of entries and the diverse contestants have showedthe increasing appeal of the awards.

According to Minh, with a range of external information channels, forms andworks, together with cooperation with about 40 foreign news agencies and anetwork of 30 representative offices in all the five continents, the VNA boastsmany advantages in disseminating information on the event.

Submissions can be in any language and must be published in the forms of anarticle of printed newspaper, online newspaper and website (licensed bycompetent agencies), radio broadcast, television broadcast, press photo,landscape photo or book. They must have been broadcast via licensed mass mediain Vietnam or in a foreign country from January 1 to December 31, 2018. Theawards will be announced and presented in May 2019.

Entries must be sent to the Standing Agency of the National ExternalInformation Service Awards 2018 before March 31, 2019.-VNA