November 18, 2016, Baku, Azerbaijan
Participants: AZERTAC (Azerbaijan), TASS (Russia), Anadolu (Turkey), IRNA (IRNA), Yonhap (South Korea), Xinhua (China), Kyodo (Japan), AAP (Australia), PTI (India), Bernama (Malaysia), MONTSAME (Mongolia), WAM (UAE), VNA (Vietnam) and others..
OANA Secretary General Mr. Mikhail Gusman`s welcoming remarks at the opening of the 40th OANA Executive Board meeting
Mr. Mikhail Gusman greeted the participants and thanked Aslan Aslanov, Director General of AZERTAC for hosting the NAWC and the OANA XVI General Assembly in Baku. He expressed gratitude to all OANA members for their contributions.
OANA President, TASS Director General Mr. Sergey Mikhaylov’s opening address
Mr. Sergey Mikhaylov extended special thanks to the leading news agency of the Republic of Azerbaijan – AZERTAC - and its Director-General Mr. Aslan Aslanov for hospitality. He also took the opportunity to thank all of the participants for the evident contribution made to the development of our organization and for the efforts they exerted for the sake of strengthening cooperation among member news agencies.
He gave detailed information about the OANA.
“OANA, set up at UNESCO’s initiative back in 1961, incorporates 44 news agencies in 35 countries around the world. Today it is the largest media site for direct and free exchanges of information in the Asia-Pacific Region. This is particularly valuable and important, as the OANA member-countries account for two-thirds of the world information flow,” – Mr. Mikhaylov said.
He stressed that throughout its presidency of this authoritative international organization TASS had sought to preserve the existing traditions, to actualize OANA activities and to jointly provide a response to the challenges of the modern media space.
In the conclusion OANA President underlined that there was a great deal of work still to be done. Mr. Mikhaylov called all OANA members to exchange experience and achieve joint solutions to complex problems, and to pool efforts to support and develop the organization.
OANA Secretary General Mr. Mikhail Gusman asked members of the committee to review the agenda of the meeting and the plenary session. He noted that there had been problems with membership fees by some of the OANA members in the past. During its chairmanship, TASS had not spent any money collected from members on OANA activities. He listed 9 candidates for OANA Award for Excellence in News Agency Quality voting. He said that TASS won the OANA Award for Excellence in News Agency Quality, while the second and the third winners were the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) and Anadolu Agency of Turkey, respectively.
Other points
AAP CEO Mr. Bruce Davidson asked to make specifics of the financial report available so that the Board knows the proportions and payments that have been done by OANA members.
OANA Secretary General Mr. Mikhail Gusman said TASS had been more flexible during its presidency towards the agencies those do not pay the membership fee.
