site.btaUPDATED BTA Discusses News Exchange with Egypt's MENA and Bulgarian Community in Egypt

BTA Director General Kiril Valchev and MENA Board Chairman and Editor in Chief Ali Hassan discussed starting an exchange of news between the Bulgarian News Agency and the Middle East News Agency. Their meeting at the MENA Head Office in Cairo was attended by the Bulgarian Ambassador to Egypt, Deyan Katratchev.
 
MENA was established in 1955. It has a staff of about 600 and has correspondents in some 20 countries, Ali Hassan said.

The two news agencies have never had a cooperation agreement. On Tuesday, BTA signed the 38th cooperation agreement with Yemen's SABA news agency.

Valchev said that BTA had signed such agreements in the Middle East with the national news agencies of Israel, Iran, Lebanon, UAE and Saudi Arabia. In this way, various news sources in the region provide information to all Bulgarian media and feature BTA's reports on Bulgaria.

Valchev presented Hassan with a medal and a postage stamp commemorating BTA's 125th anniversary, which is marked in 2023.

BTA's Director General talked to the Bulgarian community about the dissemination of news from Bulgarians worldwide in BTA's BG World section. Information about Bulgaria is available from the news agency after amendments to the BTA Act in 2021 made access to its news services free of charge.

The meeting at the Bulgarian Embassy in Cairo was attended by 40 Bulgarians. The Embassy holds information about some 200 Bulgarians who are permanently resident in Egypt.

Valchev talked with Tsvetelina Krasteva, concertmaster of the Cairo Opera House since 2007, and with Krasin Rashkov, Head of Electrical Engineering Department at WorleyParsons. Along with some 30 Bulgarians, Rashkov is involved in the construction of Egypt's first nuclear power plant, El Dabaa, on the Mediterranean coast. The project was launched in 2022 and is expected to be completed in 2030.

Bulgarians who live in Sudan, including the brothers Khalid and Yasser Mahmoud, two of the secretaries of the Sudan-Bulgaria Association, attended the meeting in Cairo. The Bulgarians were evacuated from Sudan with the help of the Embassy in Cairo after a war broke out in mid-April between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Valchev visited Egypt and Yemen after attending the Global Media Congress in Abu Dhabi.