Bulgaria's BTA, Egypt's national agency MENA sign news exchange deal

The Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) and Egypt's national news agency Middle East News Agency (MENA) launched a news exchange for the first time. BTA Director General Kiril Valchev and MENA Chair and Editor-in-Chief Ahmed Kamal signed a cooperation agreement on Monday in Cairo, Azernews reports.

The signing ceremony at MENA's headquarters in Cairo was also attended by Bulgaria's Ambassador to Egypt Deyan Katratchev, who told MENA that Bulgaria and Egypt enjoy friendly relations and excellent economic cooperation, and the media partnerships will add an important contribution to this dynamic relationship.

"The two agencies have never had a cooperation agreement before and today's signing is the result of talks started more than three years ago to establish cooperation by Bulgarian Ambassador to Cairo Deyan Katratchev, a meeting with MENA's leadership in Cairo a year ago and discussions at international media forums," Valchev said.

He added that BTA also has such agreements with other countries from the region - Algeria, Israel, Iran, Yemen, Morocco, Lebanon, UAE and Saudi Arabia. "This provides a variety of sources of information from the region for all Bulgarian media and, accordingly, enables spreading of BTA news from Bulgaria in this region," the BTA Director General noted.

He said that the agreements allow the two agencies to complement news from Egypt and Bulgaria respectively to the information they purchase from global agencies without making additional investments.

Valchev added that MENA has various news sources in the Middle East region, while BTA develops a correspondent network in the Balkans and Association of Balkan News Agencies - Southeast Europe (ABNA-SEE) is headquartered in Bulgaria and he serves as its Secretary General.

"Due to this, Bulgarian media will receive from MENA more news not only about Egypt, but also about the Middle East, and Egyptian media - more news not only about Bulgaria, but also about the Balkans," the BTA Director General noted.

MENA was established in 1955 and employs about 600 people, with correspondents in some 20 countries.

Valchev stressed that the free exchange of information between BTA and MENA will be particularly useful in the business sector, as Egypt is Bulgaria's main trading partner among the Arab countries, as well as in the tourism and cultural sectors.

He proposed the preparation of a joint exhibition with photos of the two agencies' archives from the valleys of the kings in the two countries - the Thracian rulers near Kazanlak (Central Bulgaria) and the ancient Egyptian kings near Luxor, involving scholars from both countries to present the interconnections in the understanding of the world in the history of these lands.

Ambassador Katratchev organized a dinner at the Bulgarian Embassy before the signing of the agreement. It was attended by the heads of the two agencies, as well as Egyptologists from both countries. The Egyptian guests received LIK magazine issues in English dedicated to Bulgarian science in Antarctica and the Bulgarian footprint in space on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of the flight of cosmonaut Georgi Ivanov, which made Bulgaria the sixth country to send a man into space.

The agreement signed between BTA and MENA provides for each party to receive the full set of news in English of the other party, and both parties have the right to use this information in their news services.

In addition, each of the two agencies will provide the other with a daily briefing on a significant news story from its country, with English text and a photo, to be published by the other agency on its distribution channels for free reading by all visitors to the respective sites, provided the source is explicitly mentioned.

The contract also provides for the possibility of exchanges of experience and professional visits by journalists and other media professionals from both news agencies.

The contract will enter into force on the date of its signature and will be automatically renewed annually in perpetuity.

After 2021, when the National Assembly made access to BTA's news open access, Bulgaria's national news agency arranged new contracts with global agencies from which it buys information to allow all Bulgarian media to republish their news translated into Bulgarian free of charge.

In addition to purchasing news products from 5 global news agencies, following the agreement signed with MENA, BTA provides Bulgarian media with news products free of charge from 49 other agencies from 4 continents with which BTA has similar cooperation agreements, including the national news agencies of all Bulgaria's neighboring countries and 23 European agencies.

BTA has such contracts for daily news exchange free of charge with the national news agencies of Austria, Azerbaijan, Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, Greece, Ghana, Israel, India, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Spain, Ivory Coast, Yemen, Vietnam, Latvia, Liberia, Lebanon, Morocco, Moldova, Mongolia, Nigeria, the Netherlands, Poland, North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovakia, Serbia, Turkiye, the Philippines, the UAE, Croatia and Montenegro, and is a subscriber to Ukraine's national news agency.