(LEAD) VNA joins Yonhap's PyeongChang Olympic news-sharing platform

All News 21:06 February 09, 2017

(ATTN: ADDS photos)

HANOI, Feb. 9 (Yonhap) -- Vietnam News Agency (VNA) agreed on Thursday to join a news-sharing platform being developed by Yonhap News Agency that allows outlets to mutually share content on the upcoming PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

Park No-hwang, president and CEO of Yonhap, and VNA General Director Nguyen Duc Loi signed the PyeongChang News Service Network (PNN) membership agreement at the latter's headquarters in Hanoi. The Vietnamese company became PNN's 10th member.

Park No-hwang (2nd from L), president and CEO of Yonhap News Agency, and VNA General Director Nguyen Duc Loi (3rd from R) sign the PyeongChang News Service Network (PNN) membership agreement at the latter's headquarters in Hanoi on Feb. 9, 2017 (VNA-Yonhap)

Yonhap, South Korea's leading newswire service, is the host national news agency for the upcoming Winter Games that will be staged next year in PyeongChang, some 180km east of Seoul.

PNN, developed by Yonhap, allows members to exchange PyeongChang news content for free in real time. The system is expected to be developed by April.

Members will also be able to use not just Yonhap's content but also that of fellow members without signing separate agreements. The platform is expected to remove the inconvenience of writing and developing new software for every exchange partnership.

Current members include the Press Trust of India, Ethiopian News Agency and Mongolia's state news agency Montsame.

"We've started sending our letter of proposal regarding PNN registration to news agencies since the middle of last month, but we already have our 10th member," Park said.

"We will continue to invest in PNN so that the system can become a standard news-sharing platform for news agencies."

The South Korean company plans to operate the platform even after the Olympics. This move is expected to reduce reliance on Western-based global news wire services.

The two news agencies also signed a renewed news exchange deal that allows the sharing of Korean and Vietnamese content. Previously, the two sides shared English news only.

"As South Korea and Vietnam celebrate the 25th anniversary of diplomatic relations this year, the exchange and cooperation between the two state news agencies are more important than ever," Park said.

Yonhap currently has partnerships and news-exchange deals with 86 news agencies in 72 countries.