KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 17: The Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) and China’s Xinhua News Agency (Xinhua) will renew a News Exchange and Cooperation Agreement on Monday to further step up news and content exchanges across multiple platforms.
Both news agencies began their news and content exchanges on Dec 14, 1985 with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Kuala Lumpur.
Since then, cooperation between the two news agencies continued to grow, providing balanced and fair coverage on international news and valuable insights into developments not only in Malaysia and China but also the rest of the world.
This timely renewal of the agreement between Bernama and Xinhua marks another milestone for both sides as it will open doors for more quality content exchanges to meet the ever changing vibrant media landscape, and better serve the growing demands of audience in the age of digitalisation and artificial intelligence.
Bernama’s Editor-in-Chief (also discharging the duties of Chief Executive Officer) Nur-ul Afida Kamaludin and Xinhua’s Director for Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau, Wang Jinfu will represent their respective news agencies.
Communication Minister Fahmi Fadzil is expected to be present at the signing ceremony.
From providing news content since its inception in 1967 under the Bernama Act, Bernama’s services have now expanded from solely wire news and photographs service to broadcasting via Bernama TV and Bernama Radio as well as digital media.
Bernama also has a strong presence in social media platforms, including in Facebook, X, instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Threads.
Currently, Bernama delivers its news via wires services in six languages namely Bahasa Melayu, English, Chinese, Tamil, Arabic and Spanish.
Xinhua, a ministry-level institution founded in 1931, is the largest media organisation in China.
On average, Xinhua releases some 15,000 media publications per day in Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, German, Portuguese, and Mongolian Cyrillic.
Xinhua has 181 bureaus around the world, with the Malaysia’s bureau currently headed by Mao Pengfei.
The renewal of the agreement between Bernama and Xinhua is also significant as it coincides with the celebration of the Malaysia-China 50th year anniversary of diplomatic relations next year.
— BERNAMA