Shift the promotional mission to localities and creating special stories to improve the effectiveness of external information affairs

On September 22 - 23, 2022, in Ha Long City (Quang Ninh Province), Ministry of Information and Communications in collaboration with Quang Ninh Province People's Committee organized a training conference on deploying the media framework to promote Vietnam's images abroad in a new way to contribute to promoting and enhancing Vietnam's image ranking in the world.

The scene of the conference

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Lam, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications gave the opening speech

In his opening speech, Mr. Nguyen Thanh Lam, Deputy Minister of Information and Communications emphasized that national image promotion was a major content of external information affairs, requiring a new way which helped to create innovative, proactive, positive and advance steps: Focus on what the world needs and wants to know about Vietnam based on a unified, universal communication framework for an easy image recognition; supporting national diplomacy, tourism, trade, foreign investment attraction, national competitiveness enhancement, and socio-economic development. Besides, this new promotion way considers the localities as the "nucleus" and "the foundation" to build the national image and gradually enhance Vietnam's image in global ranking.

Mr. Doan Cong Huynh, Director of Department of External Information, Ministry of Information and Communications’s discussion: The new communication method opens up external information affairs in a new way

At the conference, the speakers shared with the delegates new opinions and guidance on how to conduct the communication for new external information affairs, discussed the difference in communication practice, affirmed the key role of localities in building the image forthe localities socio-economic benefits. Accordingly, to enhance the effectiveness of external information affairs, localities should play the core role with special stories that international friends would want to know through effective promotion channels.

Catching up with this trend, under the direction of the City People's Committee, Hai Phong Department of Foreign Affairs has recently effectively operated the Multilingual External Relations Portal in five languages (Vietnamese, English, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese) at the website: https://haiphongnews.gov.vn, fully and promptly provide interesting information for international individuals, organizations and localities, attracting special attention from the international community with more than 61,000 visits after 1 year operation.
The interface of Hai Phong City Multilingual External Relations Portal

The conference also provided guidancce to localities on how to implement and measure the effectiveness of the communication practice through the set of Vietnam image brand index including 22 indicators representing the value system, life quality, business potentials, culture-heritage, tourism, and product origin.

The conference showed the determination of ministries and sectors to support the localities in renewing the promotion campaign, helping localities to transform their perception towards synchronous communication on a single platform. In addition, efforts to promote the image, build the brandname, enhance the socio-economic development of each locality and the whole country was well demonstrated through the event./.

Ngoc Huong - Hai Phong Department of Foreign Affairs