S Korean news boss hails VNA

HA NOI — Visiting President and CEO of Yonhap News Agency of the Republic of Korea Park Jung-chan praised the co-operation with Vietnam News Agency (VNA), describing it as one Yonhap's most important international partners, at a meeting with General Director of VNA Tran Mai Huong in Ha Noi yesterday.

He said he highly valued information provided by VNA and expressed his wish to develop the bilateral relations to become a symbol of co-operation among news agencies in Asia.

VNA General Director Huong spoke highly of the Yonhap delegation's recent visit, stressing the need to continue exchanging visits between high-level delegations, reporters and information. He also emphasised the need to increase mutual assistance between the two news agencies' bureaus in their respective countries.

"VNA is willing to support the implementation of language training programmes for Yonhap," the VNA General Director said.

He introduced VNA's functions as a national news agency, saying that VNA is accelerating its multimedia components, including mobile news and the TV station, along with existing media to improve the quality of its publications in order to provide information to foreign news agencies. In addition, VNA also focuses on personnel training and human resource development as well as management reform.

VNA values its co-operation with Yonhap, General Director Huong said, seeking to promote relations between the two news agencies to promote friendship between Viet Nam and the RoK.

Huong agreed with President Park Jung-chan on the importance of regular co-operation and said VNA would create favourable conditions for Yonhap reporters to cover news in Viet Nam.

In return, President Park Jung-chan said Yonhap will work to bring language training programmes to Vietnamese and RoK reporters and said the company was ready to share information technology with VNA. He also expressed his interest in VNA's initial efforts to launch a TV channel and said that Yonhap will soon have a TV channel of its own to meet the RoK people's demand and give their correspondents a larger voice.

Also at the talks the two sides agreed to further increase the quality and effectiveness of information exchange to produce quick and accurate news and act as a bridge between the two countries. During its visit, the Yonhap delegation also visited the VNA Television Centre. — VNS

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Pharma executive arrested for alleged securities fraud

HCM CITY — Le Van Dung, chairman and general director of Duoc Vien Dong Pharmaceutical Company, has been detained by police for alleged securities price manipulation.

The company is listed on the HCM City Stock Exchange as DVD.

This is the first arrest in Viet Nam involving securities fraud since the country's stock market opened in 2000.

Dung made transactions with other people to allegedly manipulate the price of another pharmaceutical firm, the Duoc Ha Tay Company, listed on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange as DHT.

The transactions were alleged have been made via trading accounts opened by Dung's younger brother Le Van Manh and several other people.

The transactions created false demand, and lured many investors into buying DHT shares at high prices. They then suffered losses.

According to the State Securities Commission, on June 21 Dung held 18.74 per cent of DHT's VND41 billion (US$2.05 million) in chartered capital.

The Medi Investment Company, a shareholder of DVD, also owned several per cent, as well as DVD itself.

In all, they have a stake of 28.68 per cent. Their purchases, as a group, are supposed to be made public when they exceeded 25 per cent under current regulations. But they were not, according to authorities.

DVD and a group of shareholders continued their DHT buying, increasing their ownership to around 60 per cent, according to Tuoi Tre Newspaper.

They managed to inflate the DHT price, from VND30,000 to VND100,000. DVD sold out its stake in July.

Last Friday, DHT shares closed at VND49,300.

In early September, DHT officially blamed the price fall on manipulation by DVD and those people associated with it.

The SSC suspended DVD share issuance to the public for 60 days beginning November 19, basing its decision on the incorrect, insufficient information in the prospectus.

Dung holds around 4 million out of the total of 11.9 million DVD shares.

Last Thursday, DVD executive board relieved Dung of his position as the company chairman and general director.

HOSE announced last Friday that DVD shares would be put on alert as a way to protect investors, saying Dung's arrest might strongly affect the company's operation. — VNS

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VNA seeks closer multimedia ties

ISTANBUL — Viet Nam News Agency (VNA) General Director Tran Mai Huong says multimedia is becoming an inevitable trend for the survival of news agencies and Asia-Pacific news agencies should co-operate in developing a multimedia platform to share their products.

Addressing the 14th General Assembly of the Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA) which was held in Istanbul, Turkey from November 24-27, the director general called on OANA to make adjustments in accordance with developing technologies and the habits of media consumers. "We are facing greater and more challenging competition as a number of our traditional key clients – some print newspapers – have already disappeared," he said.

"However, multimedia has become an inevitable trend for the survival of our VNA and like our fellow news agencies it is on that track."

He proposed the OANA co-operate in developing a multimedia platform on which member agencies can share video clips as they do with text news and photos.

"With this, member agencies can reduce production costs and raise prestige, as well as deliver more lively messages about our own countries," he said. General Director Huong and Mehr News Agency of Iran (MNA) Director General Reza Moqadassi signed a co-operation agreement between the two agencies while at the general assembly. The agreement lays a foundation for information exchange and professional co-operation, particularly for exchange of video clips and TV programmes in the English language which are of great importance in the present digital and multimedia age.

The participants at the General Assembly discussed and adopted the Istanbul Declaration which spells out the need for OANA members to increase co-operation in light of the globalisation of information and developments taking place in cyberspace. — VNS

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VNA discusses plans to lift co-operation with Xinhua

HA NOI — Vietnam News Agency and its Chinese counterpart Xinhua yesterday discussed plans to expand bilateral co-operation in information exchange.

During talk between VNA Deputy General Director Nguyen Hoai Duong and Xinhua Deputy Permanent Secretary of the Party Committee Lu Jun, the Chinese side proposed to support short-term training courses in the Chinese language and technical professional training courses for Vietnamese television staff, translators, interpreters and reporters, and VNA proposed to improve the Vietnamese language skills of Xinhua's Vietnamese website editors.

They also had a detailed discussion about the supply and exchange of information in the Vietnamese, English and Chinese languages regarding important national and international events in their respective countries and committed to using official foreign policy information as issued by each side.

The two sides also agreed to strengthen bilateral co-operation on mobile information services.

VNA General Director Tran Mai Huong described the meeting as a good opportunity to further discuss the implementation of co-operative agreements in the near future.

VNA has officially broadcast a news channel in Chinese and launched a Chinese language news website at http://cn.vietnamplus.vn and Xinhua will soon launch its news website in Vietnamese. — VNS

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Vietnam attends ABU General Assembly in Japan

The 47 th Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union’s (ABU) General Assembly, with the theme “the Resilience of Broadcasting”, opened in the Japanese capital Tokyo on October 19.

The General Director of Vietnam Television (VTV) Vu Van Hien and the Deputy General Director of Radio of Voice of Vietnam (VOV) Dao Duy Hua are taking part in the assembly together with more than 400 delegates from 43 countries and territories worldwide.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, the President of Japan’s Broadcasting Corporation (NHK), Shigeo Fukuchi, stated that broadcasting plays an important role in safeguarding people’s lives and boosting mutual understanding between countries and regions through reliable information.

He confirmed that although the development of the Internet has created significant changes to global mass communications, the role of broadcasting remains unchanged.

In his message to the assembly, Japanese Minister of Home Affairs and Communications Yoshihiro Katayama, praised the ABU’s contributions to the development of the broadcasting sector as well as economic and cultural development in Asia-Pacific.

Japan will continue to support the regional broadcasting industry by providing training, equipment and production technologies, he stressed.

ABU Chairman and NHK Vice President in charge of external relations, Yoshinori Imai, said that Myanmar’s Radio and Television broadcasters had recently been admitted to the ABU, raising the organisation’s membership to 197.

During the two-day event, the delegates will discuss issues that radio and television stations are facing, including digitalising broadcasting technologies.

First established in 1964, the ABU is a non-governmental organisation which aims to boost the development of the broadcasting industry in Asia-Pacific, as well as linking its members together by exchanging information, programmes, technical consultations and services./.

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Australian broadcaster to help boost media links

Vietnam News Agency general director Tran Mai Huong shakes hands with Chief Executive Officer of Radio Australia Mike McCluskey after the signing of a memorandum of understanding to facilitate co-operation between both sides. — VNA/VNS Photo Ngoc Quang

SYDNEY — A memorandum of understanding to facilitate bilateral co-operation in multimedia between the Vietnam News Agency and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation was signed in Sydney, Australia, on Wednesday.

Under the document, the two sides agreed to study co-operation methods such as sharing development experiences, multimedia information exchange, programme production, consulting and management sharing, as well as exchanging reporters.

Also on Wednesday, VNA general director Tran Mai Huong discussed specific measures to realise the potential for co-operation with Chief Executive of Australia Network Bruce Dover, Chief Executive Officer of Radio Australia Mike McCluskey and ABC's corporate strategy and international co-operation director Julia Thoener.

During his five-day working visit to Australia, which will end on Sunday, Huong will also visit and discuss co-operation possibilities with the Australian Associated Press (AAP) news agency. — VNS

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Troubled shipbuilder names new chief - again

There has been yet another change at the top at the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, with Truong Van Tuyen taking over as general director from acting chief Nguyen Quoc Anh.

Tuyen, 60, is a former general director of the state-owned Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) and the current head of the Dung Quat oil refinery.

Anh had taken over from Tran Quang Vu August 30 after the latter was suspended and then arrested on charges of mismanaging state assets while serving as the head of a Vinashin subsidiary in the early 2000s.

Vu himself had only been appointed July 1 in place of Vinashin's founding director Pham Thanh Binh who had been arrested on similar charges.

A government audit had found the company having debts of US$4.5 billion.

Police have so far arrested six Vinashin officials, including the two former chief executives.

Last month the government ordered commercial banks to suspend Vinashin's debt repayments and gave the company an estimated $130 million to complete its shipbuilding orders and ensure their delivery this year.

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Exhibition on President Ho Chi Minh opens

An exhibition entitled “Ho Chi Minh and Lifelong Study” opened in Hanoi on October 2 in response to the “Studying and Following President Ho Chi Minh’s Moral Example” campaign and mark the Vietnam Study Encouragement Day (Oct. 2).

Speaking at the opening ceremony, General Director of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Irina Bokova expressed her respect to President Ho Chi Minh, who founded the independent Vietnam country, saying that firstly being a poet, a journalist and a teacher, Ho Chi Minh was deeply aware of the importance of education for people.

Ho Chi Minh is an example of the lifelong study, she said.

As the UNESCO General Director, Irina Bokova praised Vietnam as it has spent 20 percent of its budget for education and is making every effort to build a studious society.

UNESCO pledges to stand side by side with Vietnam during its cause of educational development and support the country to establish a lifelong study centre in Hanoi, she stressed.

According to Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh, the exhibition is also being held concurrently at the Ho Chi Minh Museum’s branches in Ho Chi Minh City, the central province of Nghe An and the northern mountainous province of Cao Bang.

During her Vietnam visit, the UNESCO leader presented the book of the UNESCO General Assembly resolutions issued during its 24 th session from October 20 and November 20, 1987, including Resolution 18.65 on honouring Ho Chi Minh as a hero of national liberation and a world cultural celebrity./.

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Ex-bank officials’ bribery trial postponed in Hanoi

A court in Hanoi Thursday delayed the trial of two former officials of the Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam (BIDV) charged with receiving VND5 billion (US$257,069) in bribes from a company to approve a loan.

Hanoi’s People’s Court called for additional investigations, saying there were many conflicts between the testimonies of Doan Tien Dung, former Deputy General Director of BIDV, and Tran Thi Thanh Binh, Vice Director of a BIDV branch in the northern province of Hai Phong.

Some of the accusations and evidence against the pair were not sufficiently clear, the judge found.

At their arraignment on Wednesday, Dung and Binh were both charged with “abuse of power and authority for financial gains” - a crime punishable by between 20 years and life in prison.

According to the indictment, while he was at helm of BIDV Hai Phong before being promoted to Deputy General Director in September 2008, Dung approved a loan of nearly VND45 billion (US$2.4 million) to Hai Phong Weaving and Sewing Company and V.K. Company, both headed by Hoang Van Khanh.

The loans were based on the mortgage of the companies’ properties, including a container truck depot, prosecutors said.

Early last year BIDV Hai Phong allowed Khanh to sell the mortgaged depot to Anpha Hai Phong Oil and Gas Joint-stock Company for VND57 billion ($2.9 million).

Dung then asked Khanh for several payments in exchange for approving the withdrawl of the sales proceeds, according to prosecutors.

Dung, with Binh acting as his accomplice, received VND4 billion ($209,478) from the V.K. Company, prosecutors alleged.

Dung was caught red-handed accepting VND1 billion ($52,369) from Khanh at a pho restaurant in February.

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Deputy PM salutes 40 years of Viet Nam Television

HA NOI — During its 40 years of broadcasting, Viet Nam Television (VTV) has been an effective communication tool of every Vietnamese, reaching overseas to keep those living abroad informed of developments at home, said Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Thien Nhan.

The Deputy PM made the statement at a ceremony to mark the 40th anniversary of VTV, adding that VTV's broadcasts were of increasingly higher standard.

VTV had contributed not only to the country's socio-economic development, but also in improving people's knowledge and lives, said the Deputy PM.

Deputy PM Nhan asked VTV to continue developing the national television network in line with global trends and constantly strive to raise the quality of their programmes to meet public demand.

During the ceremony, VTV's General Director Vu Van Hien said that VTV currently broadcasts six channels, outputting 120 hours of programming daily. VTV's regional stations in Hue, Da Nang, Phu Yen, Can Tho and HCM City had also contributed to providing local broadcasting.

At present, VTV covers over 90 per cent of the country and reaches 17 million households and its satellite TV channel (DTH) covers all of Viet Nam. VTV4 also reaches almost everywhere that overseas Vietnamese live.

On the occasion, VTV received the Ho Chi Minh Order for the second time from the State President and VTV's General Director Vu Van Hien was awarded the Independence Order, third class, for his contributions to the development of the television sector. Vice President Nguyen Thi Doan was also present at the ceremony. — VNS

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HCMC cops take in man trying to sell fake gold

The Ho Chi Minh City police caught Thursday a man trying to sell 25 fake one-tael SJC gold bars to a jewelry shop in District 5.

They had been tipped off by the suspicious shop owner.

This is part of a disturbing trend in recent times, with shops discovering many look-alikes of Saigon Jewelry Co’s one-tael bullions, Do Cong Chinh, deputy general director of the company, told Tuoi Tre.

The fake bars are 97-98 percent pure compared to the 99.99 percent purity of the genuine ones.

The problem came to light after a customer of a jeweler in Tan Binh District complained. The trader then went through his inventory to find several fakes, some just 91-92 percent pure.

Their real value, as a result, was just around VND27 million (US$1,387.5)  instead of VND29 million ($1,490) for a one-tael bar.

Some genuine SJC gold pieces had their edges missing reducing their weight by 0.7-1.2 grams and, worth by VND580,000-1.16 million ($30-60).

These bars had been repacked in their original plastic cover and sold in the market.

It is the first time that fake and damaged SJC gold bullions have been found in the last two decades, SJC general director Nguyen Thanh Long said.

Fake gold characters

Since the fake bars contain other metals, they appear darker but glitter more.

The familiar dragon and SJC insignia are bigger and less sophisticated than on real ones, with numerals and characters seemingly glued to one another.

The fake ones are numbered FS, a series that SJC has yet to use.

The plastic packaging, however, looks exactly like the original to the naked eye.

SJC has told its dealers and gold shops to put up notices to warn customers who can take SJC gold bars they buy to the company or its dealers for free testing.

It is urging buyers to ask sellers to print out receipts with the bullion serial numbers and refuse to buy in case they do not oblige.

The company plans to begin major improvements in packaging and engraving next month to ensure the real bars are easily identifiable, Chinh said.

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