5th World Congress of News Agencies opens in Baku

5th World Congress of News Agencies opens in Baku

The 5th World Congress of News Agencies under the slogan 'New Challenges for News Agencies' opened in Baku. The event is co-organized by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Azerbaijan’s state new agency AzerTAc.

heads and representatives of more than 100 news agencies, including TASS (Russia), Press Association (the UK), SPA (Saudi Arabia), Associated Press (the US), KUNA (Kuwait), EFE (Spain), as well as secretaries general of EANA, OANA and FANA.

The Russian federal news agency Vestnik Kavkaza will take part in these event for the first time.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev took part in the opening ceremony. Addressing the ceremony, he noted that almost two hundred guests from 80 countries, representing more than hundred of the world's leading news agencies from five continents, have gathered for the 5th World News Agencies Congress.

"This is a big honor for us to host this important global international event," the President said.

"I am sure that our guests will not only discuss the important issues on the agenda, but also know more about Azerbaijan, see the development of the country," Trend cited him as saying.

"We consider hosting this event in Azerbaijan also a sign of appreciation of the activity and achievements of Azerbaijan in the development of independent media. This is one of the priorities for our government," he said.

"I think that the achievements during the 25 years of independence show that we managed to provide freedom of media, as well as all other fundamental freedoms," the president said.

He noted that today, in Azerbaijan there are almost 40 daily, more than 200 weekly and monthly newspapers, 10 nationwide, one satellite, 13 regional, 17 cable TV. President Aliyev added that Azerbaijan is a country with completely free Internet, and more than 75% of population are internet users. 

He added that the population of the country is close to 10 million, and there are 2 million social media users in Azerbaijan. "So these figures show that development of free media in Azerbaijan was very successful, we achieved our goal and one of the areas of transformation for our country during these 25 years, along with political and economic reforms, was the area of reforms in democratic development," Ilham Aliyev stressed.

The Congress will feature several sessions, including 'The future of news consumption', 'News agencies – challenges and opportunities of new technologies and social media', 'News agency innovation', 'Training journalists for a multi-media future', 'Protecting the journalists’ mission: freedom, access, safety and conflict zones'. It will also feature discussion on problems facing journalism, which is now in experiencing rapid transformation, and forms of cooperation between news agencies and different social media platforms.

The 16th General Assembly of the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies and the 22nd session of the Council of CIS Heads of News Agencies will also be held in Baku these days.

President of the News Agencies World Congress and Saudi Press Agency Abdullah Bin Fahd Al-Hussein, the OANA President and TASS Director General Sergey Mikhailov, the EANA President, the chief of Swedish press agency TT Jonas Eriksson, Kuwait News Agency KUNA's Board Chairman and Director General, Sheikh Mubarak Al-Duaij Al-Ibrahim Al-Sabah, the Director General of AzerTAc, Aslan Aslanov, and the Chief Executive of PA Group Clive Marshall addressed the event after the opening.

Speakers at the sessions will include presidents of the News Agencies World Congress, OANA, EANA, FANA, managers of Associated Press, Reuters, Xinhua, Anadolu Agency, TASS, Agence France-Press, Press Association, EFE, Yonhap, Kyodo, TT, SPA, BTA, AAP, IRNA, DPA, Notimex, ATPE and other leading news agencies, Los Angeles Times newspaper, Al Arabiya television channel, and experts from Tripod Advisors, News Corp, PwC, Axel Springer, Stibo Accelerator media companies.

The Congress will also see the presentation of a photo album featuring nearly 600 photographs by the participating agencies, which was published through partnership between the Heydar Aliyev Foundation and Baku Media Center.

The congress will be open until November 17. Participants of the event will also elect members of the executive bodies of the Congress and adopt Declaration.

AzerTAc will take on a three-year presidency (2016-2019) of the Congress at the event.

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