site.btaUPDATED BTA Signs Cooperation Agreement with Morocco's MAP News Agency

The Directors General of the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA), Kiril Valchev, and of Morocco's national news agency MAP, Fouad Arif, have signed a cooperation agreement. 

MAP headquarters and presides the Atlantic Federation of African Press Agencies (FAAPA), which comprises the national news agencies of 25 of the 54 African countries that are members of the United Nations (UN).

BTA headquarters and holds the Secretary General position at the Association of Balkan News Agencies - South East Europe (ABNA-SEE), which includes the national news agencies of 12 countries. 

BTA was invited to be special guest of the Ninth FAAPA Executive Committee and to present the experience of the national news agency of Bulgaria at the accompanying conference on artificial intelligence in media and fake news, taking place in Abidjan (Ivory Coast), and the stay was fully covered by the hosts. Prior to the forum, Fouad and Valchev were received by Côte d'Ivoire’s Minister of Communication, Media and Francophonie, and Government Spokesperson, Amadou Coulibaly. 

According to BTA's Director General, the new agreement with MAP, which builds on a 2019 agreement that expired in 2021, will allow the two agencies to complement news from Morocco and Bulgaria respectively to the information from the global agencies they buy without making any additional investment. BTA and MAP will also be able to use information from their correspondent networks around the world, as MAP has bureaus in nearly 50 countries and BTA is developing a network of bureaus in the Balkans and in countries with large Bulgarian communities.  

Among FAAPA members, BTA already has such agreements with the national news agencies of Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria and Senegal. During the Forum, the news agencies of Benin, Gabon, the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) and the Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa) also expressed interest in concluding news exchange agreements with BTA. 

Kiril Valchev noted that the exchange of information with more African news agencies would be especially useful in the fields of education and business, where Bulgaria had a strong presence in the past and is interested in restoring it through the presentations of Bulgarian universities to attract students, as well as the opportunities for Bulgarian business in this part of the world, and more information about Bulgaria in the region will also allow receiving more support for Bulgarian positions and applications in various international organizations. 

As an example of the growing business opportunities in Africa, Valchev pointed out that trade between Bulgaria and Morocco has tripled in the 10 years between 2013 and 2023 from USD 99.2 million to 289.5 million. 

Under the new agreement, each side will get the other party's full set of English-language news feeds, with both parties entitled 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 photograph, to be published by the other agency on its distribution channels for free reading by all visitors to the respective websites, provided that the source is explicitly acknowledged.

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.

The BTA Director General presented his Moroccan counterpart with a commemorative postage stamp and a medal produced by the Mint of the Bulgarian National Bank issued for the 125th anniversary of BTA last year. Arif and members of the FAAPA Executive Committee received the English-language special issue of BTA's LIK magazine dedicated to Bulgarian science in Antarctica.

After 2021, when the National Assembly voted to make access to BTA news services free of charge for all users, BTA made it possible, through new contracts with the global news agencies from which it buys information, for all Bulgarian media outlets to reproduce at no cost stories from their news services translated into Bulgarian. 

Following the agreement signed with the MAP, BTA will provide Bulgarian media, at no cost, news from 47 national agencies from 4 continents (Europe, Asia, America and Africa) with which BTA has similar cooperation agreements, including the national news agencies of all Bulgaria's neighbouring countries and 23 European agencies (16 EU members, including the two global news agencies France Press and DPA), which are members of the European Alliance of News Agencies. BTA has such agreements for daily news exchange free of charge with the national news agencies of Austria, Azerbaijan, Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, Cyprus, Ghana, Georgia, Greece, Israel, India, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kosovo, Spain, Ivory Coast, Yemen, Vietnam, Latvia, Liberia, Lebanon, Morocco, Moldova, Mongolia, Nigeria, the Netherlands, Poland, the Republic of North Macedonia, Portugal, Romania, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Slovakia, Serbia, Turkey, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates, Croatia and Montenegro, and is a subscriber to Ukraine's national news agency.