President Tran Dai Quang (third from right) and Head of the Party Central Committee's Communication and Education Commission Vo Van Thuong (second from left) present the first prizes to the winners.

Politburo member and State President Tran Dai Quang; Politburo member Vo Van Thuong, who heads the Party Central Committee’s Communication and Education Commission; and Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam, were in attendance.
The 2016 awards witnessed a remarkable increase in the number of entries received as up to 893 works were sent to the organising committee, up 21% compared to the previous edition, including 349 works for the print media category, 204 for electronic media, 61 for radio, 112 for televised broadcasts, 106 for photos and 61 for books.
A total of 17 different languages were used by entrants, namely Vietnamese, English, French, German, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Polish, Chinese, Japanese, Lao, Thai, Indonesian, Korean and Persian, six languages more than in the previous contest.
Participants were diverse, ranging from journalists and collaborators of press agencies to experts, researchers, photographers, publishers, Vietnamese ambassadors abroad and foreign ambassadors in Vietnam. In addition to professional reporters, a lot of Vietnamese people living overseas and international friends enthusiastically responded to the awards.
After two rounds of marking, preliminary and final, the organising committee selected 69 of the most outstanding works to be awarded prizes, including six first prizes, 15 second prizes, 18 third prizes as well as 30 consolation prizes.
Speaking at the ceremony, Politburo member Vo Van Thuong warmly congratulated and praised the award winners, emphasising that the quality of entries this year were much higher than the previous years.
The winning works comprehensively cover a wide range of topics, including the political, economic, social and cultural life of the country as well as the lives of Vietnamese people living abroad, big events and hot issues of public concern in 2016, whilst helping to advertise the image of Vietnam and its history, culture and people to international friends, he said.
They also provided a timely, accurate and vivid coverage of the Party’s guidelines and the State’s policies and laws, as well as Vietnam’s stance with regards to international and regional issues, contributing to refuting and countering fabricated information and false accusations concerning Vietnam, Thuong noted.
This is the third time in a row the national external information service awards have been organised, following the success of the 2014 and 2015 editions. The success of the 2016 edition has demonstrated the awards’ increasing prestige and affirmed the significant role played by external information work in the current situation.