A visit by a delegation from theRussian news agency ITAR-TASS is expected to help consolidate andstrengthen the traditional friendship between Vietnam and Russia ingeneral and between the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) and ITAR-TASS inparticular.

Deputy Foreign Minister and Chairmanof the State Committee for Overseas Vietnamese Affairs Nguyen Thanh Sonmade the remarks while receiving the ITAR-TASS delegation, led by itsDeputy General Director Klein Aleksandr Orestovich, in Hanoi on October19.

He expressed his hope that with the cooperative agreement between VNAand ITAR-TASS signed in August 2008, the two national news agencieswill step into a new stage of development, helping reflect the latestinformation on the land and people of Vietnam and Russia .

For his part, the ITAR-TAS Deputy General Director affirmed thatmaintaining effective cooperation between the two news agencies willplay a key role in developing the two nations’ ties.

On October 14, the Russian guests held talks with a VNA delegation led by Deputy General Director Ha Minh Hue.

The two sides expressed great satisfaction with their bilateralcooperation in the information sector over the past time, which ashelped to strengthen each other’s profile on the internationalinformation scene, and further the friendship and strategic partnershipbetween the two countries.

The two sides agreed to expand their cooperation into other fieldsbesides information exchange such as publishing the Vietnam Pictorialin Russia, increasing photo exchanges, teaching the Russian language toVNA correspondents and jointly organising photo exhibitions in eachcountry.

VNA looks forward to its Russian counterpart providing multi-mediainformation for its television channel, which is expected to make itsdebut in the near future./.