51st OANA Executive Board & Technical Committee Meeting

October 23, 2023

Istanbul, Türkiye

 


Participants (in alphabetic order)

AA (Türkiye), ANTARA (Indonesia), AZERTAC (Azerbaijan), BNA (Bahrain), IRNA and MEHR (Iran), KAZINFORM/TRC (Kazakhstan), KYODO NEWS (Japan), MONTSAME (Mongolia), TASS (Russia), VNA (Vietnam), WAM (UAE), XINHUA (China), YONHAP (South Korea).

Chairpersons

  • OANA President & IRNA Managing Director Mr. Ali Naderi

  • Director of International Relations & OANA Secretary General Mr. Zaman Rezakhani

  • OANA Vice President & Anadolu Ajansı President & CEO, Mr. Serdar Karagöz

 

Meeting Notes:

OANA Secretary General, Zaman Rezakhani thanked Anadolu Ajansı for hosting the EBM. 

SG announced that enough members gathered for the meeting. 

Before the start, AA General Director Serdar Karagöz and OANA President Ali Naderi gave opening speeches. 

Ali Naderi touched upon the financial report and previous meetings. He thanked Yonhap's brilliant management in OANA during Covid-19 pandemic and said as the global situation is normal again, IRNA has tried to hold OANA meetings regularly. 

Zaman Rezakhani summarized the previous meeting and the Board members confirmed the minutes.

The Secretary General read an assessment of the financial report. Iranian News Agencies could not do international money transactions this year, and Russian News Agencies also had problems with US dollar transactions.

Decision for Members' Engagement

Proactive participation of the OANA members was discussed. A trilateral working group will form to figure out ways of encouraging participation and devise new activities in this regard.

2023 OANA Award

2023 OANA Award will be given to XINHUA for its drone reporting project.

New Board Member

As AAP has announced it does not intend to take part in OANA activities, a new Executive Board member will be nominated by OANA president to be confirmed by all OANA members.

New OANA Website

As the OANA website was designed in 2011, it is based on the technology of that year. IRNA made a number of proposals concerning the software, design and other updates for the Site. The Board members approved the proposals. The Executive Board gave permission to IRNA to settle the costs (between four to five thousand dollars) with OANA fund after the website is updated.

Kazinform's New Brand Name

Since Kazinform International News Agency is restructured and is owned by the TV and Radio Complex of the President of Kazakhstan (TRC), it has requested to be rebranded in OANA as TRC. The Executive Board of OANA accepted TRC's request unanimously. 

MOU with FANA

The Executive Board gave permission to OANA president to sign an MoU with FANA—Federation of Arab News Agencies.

Tokyo and Moscow will be the hosts for 2024 Executive Board meetings. Tokyo will host OANA EBM on March 6th-8th 2024 & Moscow meeting will be held in September 2024. 

Annual EBM meetings will be held twice a year like before the pandemic. This was proposed by TASS and confirmed by the Board members.

The Istanbul Declaration has been approved unanimously.

 

Zaman Rezakhani

OANA Secretary General

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