The straight-laced government of communist-run Vietnam, where pornographic Web sites are banned, plans to offer dowloadable movies on an Internet site to educate married couples about healthy sex, a newspaper said on Thursday.

The official English-language Vietnam News quoted Khuat Thu Hong, Deputy Director of the Institute for Social Development, as saying "an orthodox sex Web site" would help couples learn more about "healthy sexual intercourse".

Hong cited cases of married couples who had not had sex for a year, a rising divorce rate and rampant prostitution as reasons to publicise more information about sex.

The images offered on the Web site, yet to be named, would be only educational, Hong added.

The Ministry of Culture and Information recently ordered Internet shops to install software on all computers to monitor customers and stop them from surfing pornographic sites.

While prostitution and abortions are widespread, sex remains a taboo subject in schools and in the home.

The Vietnam Family Planning Association estimates around 1.4 million abortions are performed annually in Vietnam, which has a population of 83 million, due to a lack of sex education among teenagers and contraceptive use.