Vietnam’s news website Zing News said it has suspended publication for three months from July 14 following a government inspection.

Zing News, indirectly owned by tech company VNG Corp., in a statement said it will “focus on overcoming and thoroughly correcting shortcomings” in implementing a press master plan adopted by the prime minister in 2019.

The online platform will also ensure compliance to the directives of the Information and Communications Ministry and the Vietnam Publishing Association, Zing News said.

As of July, Vietnam had 816 news outlets, including 138 newspapers and 678 magazines, of which about a third operate in electronic formats, the Ministry of Information and Communications said on its website. Three news outlets had licenses withdrawn by the ministry.

Vietnam has increased media scrutiny since introducing the national press management plan in 2019, which sought to improve government’s management of media and eliminate overlaps in the industry. In 2018, Tuoi Tre Online, a news site under mainstream newspaper Tuoi Tre, was suspended for three months by the press authority for allegedly untrue and divisive content. The Southeast Asian nation ranks 178th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ 2023 press freedom index.

--With assistance from Nguyen Kieu Giang.

(Updates with details from the fourth paragraph)