by Hatem Mohamed SHARJAH, March 21st, 2019 (WAM) — The Emirates News Agency, WAM, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, founder of the Russian media outlet, Sputnik Information Agency, SPUTNIK, to facilitate the exchange of information, including news and broadcast content.
Under the MoU, which was signed on the sidelines of the now-running International Government Communication Forum by Mohamed Jalal Al Rayssi, Executive Director of WAM and Vasily Pushkop, Director for International Cooperation at Sputnik, the signatories will be working towards enhancing relations between the two countries’ media sectors. They will exchange news, programmes, and content to serve their objectives and future vision.
The MoU translates the desire of WAM to strengthen cooperation and partnership ties with key players in the global media sector and ensure a wider reach for the agency’s news coverage and ultimately meet the national objectives of the UAE Centennial 2071.
“The memorandum envisages media collaboration between WAM and Sputnik as per the applied legislation in effect in the two countries with regards to the daily and free exchange of news content in English, in addition to the exchange of footages and video clips,” Al Rayssi said.
He affirmed the importance of the newly formed partnerships and the prestigious status held by Sputnik regionally and internationally.
“We are confident that the MoU will contribute to the empowerment and further development of the two parties. It is a win-win partnership, as WAM will benefit from Sputnik in ensuring wider reach for our coverage. In the same fashion, Sputnik will be able to transmit their news via our wires.”
“The signing reflects the importance of the International Government Communication Forum which has proved over the past years to be an ideal platform bringing together different world cultures together under one umbrella that corroborates the UAE stature as an eminent convener of global leaders, strategists, tacticians and media professionals.”
He added that the MoU will help boost awareness of the achievements of the UAE on a wider regional and global scale. “It is a further step on the path toward ensuring a wider reach of our services after we started in 2017 to launch our news content in six languages in addition to Arabic and English to address peoples of more than 100 world countries. These languages are French, Chinese, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish and Urdu,” added Al Rayssi.
For his part, Pushkop commended the current transformational change WAM is going through to keep pace with the rapid and multi-faceted developments in the modern media industry.
“The MoU we signed is going to contribute to further developing relations between WAM and Sputnik. It will also contribute to growing relations and understanding between the peoples of both countries,” he added.
“The UAE has become a model to be copied for development and we have been looking forward to this signing with a prestigious news agency like the Emirates News Agency,” he concluded.
