Hello and welcome to VOV’s Letter Box, a weekly feature dedicated to our listeners throughout the world. We are Mai Phuong and Ngoc Huyen.

A: First on our show today, we’d like to thank you all for your greetings on Vietnam’s national reunification. Rasheed Naz of Pakistan wrote: “Happy reunification day of Vietnam 2015. I’m a new regular listener of the English Service of VOV. I like your program. All programs are informative and interesting. Letter Box is the best program. I and my club members are also interested in VOV’s 2015 contest “What do you know about Vietnam?”

B: Thank you Rasheed Naz. We hope to receive more feedback from you. VOV’s “What do you know about Vietnam?” contest continues to draw great attention of listeners worldwide.

A: The English Section, the Overseas Vietnamese and Chinese Sections have received a lot of entries. Mister Najimuddin, the President of International DX, India’s Radio Listeners Club, said: “We hope that listeners around the world will participate in this amazing contest. The contest helps us to learn more about Vietnam. Hopefully, listeners in India, as well as, our own club members will participate in the contest. I am trying to persuade my colleagues to join the contest as a way to improve their knowledge of Vietnam.”

B: S B Sharma is another listener from India who has submitted his contest entry. He says: “The contest is a great opportunity to learn more about Vietnam’s people, culture, music, festivals, traditions, and tourism. We’d like to thank VOV for giving us this opportunity”.

A: Many listeners expressed their thanks to VOV for organizing an interesting contest, saying they find suggestions from the organizers very useful. Sending a 74-page entry to our contest, Mr. Amir Jameel of Pakistan wrote that he was excited about the contest.

B:  Listeners worldwide can log on to www.vovworld.vn to read related articles or listen to the Letter Box segment to get the most up-to-date information on the contest. 

 A: I'm reading a letter from Soumya Bhattacharya of India. Soumya wrote: “I listen to your program very often on shortwave radio and never get tired of listening. I enjoy the shows very much. The Letter Box and the Weekend Music show are my favorite. Also the news segment. I enjoyed your last Sunday show on stamp collecting in Vietnam. It was very interesting and informative”.

B: Soumya continued: “I’ve been collecting stamps for a long time but did not know about the first stamps of Vietnam which honored President Ho Chi Minh. The postage stamps of Vietnam are always a collector’s delight. I’d love to hear a program dedicated to Vietnamese currency- banknotes and coins”.

A: For several years, Vietnam has been phasing out coins. While coins are still legal tender, they are now rarely used for transactions. There are two types of bank notes in Vietnam: cotton and polymer with various values and designs. The lowest value bank note in Vietnam today is VND 500 (around 2.5 cents), then VND 1,000, VND 2,000, VND 5000, VND 10,000, VND 20,000, VND 50,000, VND 100,000, VND 200,000 and the highest value is VND 500,000 (around 25 USD).

B: The front side of all bank notes contains the image of President Ho Chi Minh in addition to the words “The Socialist Republic of Vietnam”, in Vietnamese of course, the series number and the face value of the bank note in both number and text. The back side of the note shows the value of the bank note against the background of a Vietnamese symbol or typical image.

A: Let me give you a brief description of some bank notes. The 500 VND note, for example, is now the lowest value bank note of Vietnam since the VND 200 bank note was not in circulation anymore. The VND 500 note is pink with an image of Hai Phong Port, an important shipping port in the north of Vietnam.

B: The background color of the VND 1,000 bank note is a combination of light gray, light green and light violet. On the back side of the note is the picture of logging in the central highlands. In Vietnam, forestry remains an important sector in rural mountain areas.

A: It is hard to define the main color of the VND 2,000 bank note but it could be silver grey. The back side of the note captures the busy atmosphere inside the Nam Dinh Textile Factory. Vietnam’s economic development depends heavily on industrialization.

B:  The VND 5,000 bank note has a blue background, and an image of the Tri An Hydro Power Plant.

A: The color of the VND 10,000 bank note- a polymer note- is quite strange with a dark brown and green-yellow background. The picture on the back side depicts offshore oil production.

B: The background color of the VND 20,000 bank note, which is also polymer, is blue with a picture of the bridge pagoda in Hoi An, which symbolizes the fusion of diverse cultures in this place. Hoi An is one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist attraction. The 10,000 VND bank note is slightly smaller than the 20,000 VND bank note.

A: The 50,000 VND note is rose pink with an image of the old capital of Hue. For the paper series, 100,000 VND was the highest denomination. The new green polymer note has new design with an image of the Khue Van Cac or Constellation of Literature Pavilion at Hanoi’s Temple of Literature.

B: The VND 200,000 bank note has red-brown background depicting Ha Long Bay, Vietnam’s UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage. The aqua and pink 500,000 VND note depicts President Ho Chi Minh’s birth place in Kim Lien village, Nam Dan district, Nghe An province.

A: These notes are loaded with security features. Serial numbers have two alpha characters followed by an abbreviated year and a six digit serial number which has become a hall mark of polymer issues. For each denomination, the serial number to the left is vertical, is printed in red ink and is of uniform size whereas the one to the right is horizontal, is printed in black ink and its digits are of ascending size.

B: That’s a brief on Vietnamese money. We hope you found the information interesting and informative.

A: On today’s show, we’d like to acknowledge letters and emails from Fumito Hokamura of Japan, Ivan Lebedev of Russia, Siddhartha Bhattachajee of India, Abdulkarim Ahmed Ali of Libya, John Andres, Bob Nagel and Robert Krolikowski of the US, Grant Skinner of the UK, Guglielmo Della Bianca of Italy, Juan Carlos Gil Mongio of Spain and Shahimur Alam of Bangladesh. We’ll send you QSL cards and the souvenirs you requested very soon.  

A: We welcome your feedback at: English section, Overseas Service, Radio Voice of Vietnam, 45 Ba Trieu Street, Hanoi, Vietnam. Or you can email us at: englishsection@vov.org.vn. Tune in to our English program on the Internet at vovworld.vn.  Good bye. See you until next time.