Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian News Agency ANTARA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Agence France Presse (AFP), the French news agency, to step up their cooperation in news content distribution.

The cooperation had to be increased in accordance with the fast development of information broadcast technology, especially through the social media networks, AFP Director for Asia-Pasific regional Eric Wishart said here Tuesday.

The cooperation was aimed to face the new challenges in news distribution and the fast development of social networks as the information broadcasting media for the public.

In the MoU, ANTARA and AFP agreed to reaffirm their partnership as enshrined in their agreement dated January 1 2001.

ANTARA is licensed to redistribute AFP text, photos and graphics in the Republic of Indonesia.

Both sides also recognize that there are new areas for cooperation beyond the scope of the 2001 Agreement as a result of the emergence of online and mobile technology.

To exploit these new opportunities, AFP had appointed ANTARA its exclusive Bahasa Indonesia language translation partner and redistributor of translated AFP material in Indonesian territory.

AFP would also be the exclusive redistributor of the translated material outside Indonesian territory.

"After 10 years since the last MoU signing in 2001, market demand from all Indonesian regions changed due to the technology development these days," President Director of ANTARA News Agency Ahmad Mukhlis Yusuf said here Tuesday.

The number of Indonesian citizens using social media such as Facebook and Twitter was among the world`s biggest, Mukhlis said.

"We hope this agreement will be of increasingly mutual benefit in the future. All we have to do is to work harder and smarter," Mukhlis said.
(T.SDP-04/Uu.HAJM/ B003)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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