One of the Nguyen Dynasty's woodblocks.

The Nguyen Dynasty’s wood blocks are a valuable documentary resource and chronicles in Chinese or Nom scripts used for printing into books, with rich and varied content. They also serve as a reliable source of historical data in service of research, socio-economic development and construction and national sovereignty defence.

For those special values, the woodblocks of the Nguyen Dynasty have been recognised as a World Documentary Heritage by UNESCO, the first world documentary heritage in Vietnam.

In order to promote the values of the woodblocks, Deputy PM Binh has assigned the Ministry of Home Affairs to work with the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Finance and the Lam Dong provincial People’s Committee to research measures to construct suitable infrastructure facilities to safely preserve and effectively promote the values of the woodblocks.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Home Affairs, in conjunction with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Information and Communications, are responsible for preparing document sources, in order to organise exhibitions by themselves or to work with museums, both at home and abroad, to organise exhibitions with the aim of advertising Vietnam’s UNESCO-recognised World Documentary Heritage (Woodblocks of the Nguyen Dynasty), particularly introducing the contents related to Vietnam’s sovereignty over Hoang Sa (Paracel) and Truong Sa (Spratly) Archipelagoes.

The deputy PM asked the Ministry of Home Affairs to work with the relevant agencies and localities to mobilise non-State funding for the activities of exploiting and promoting the values of the Nguyen Dynasty’s wood blocks in particular and valuable archives as a whole.

Source: NDO