Isaura Daniel*
São Paulo – The Brazil-Arab News Agency (ANBA) has signed an agreement with the Tunisian news agency, Agence Tunis Afrique Presse (TAP). The partnership agreement was signed during a trip the marketing vice president at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce, Rubens Hannun, took to the Arab country last month. ANBA belongs to the Arab Brazilian Chamber.
The agreement is going to work in the moulds of the ones ANBA already has with agencies in other Arab countries. TAP is going to reproduce the content of the Brazilian agency and ANBA, in turn, will publish articles written by the Tunisian agency. According to Hannun, who is also the honorary consul of Tunisia in Brazil, the intention is for ANBA to have similar agreements with agencies in all the Arab countries.
Currently, ANBA has partnerships with Algérie Presse Service (APS), from Algeria, Emirates News Agency (WAM), Kuwait News Agency (Kuna), the Syrian Arab News Agency (Sana) and Yemen News Agency (Saba). In Brazil, the agency has an agreement with Agência Brasil, which belongs to the Brazilian government. TAP is the sixth international agency with which ANBA signs a partnership.
The agreement was an initiative by the Marketing vice president at the Arab Brazilian Chamber and was signed on November 23rd at the offices of TAP, in Tunis, the capital of the Arab country. At the occasion, Hannun met with the director general at the agency, Mohamed Bem Ezzeddine, and the editor-in-chief at the agency, Mohamed Bergaoui. According to Hannun, the Tunisians have great interest in Brazil.
The vice president at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce stated that the representatives of TAP are aware of the current level of relations between Brazil and Tunisia, with the existence of a bilateral business council and the organization of trade delegations from one country to the other. The flow of information between both countries, however, can still be greater, according to him. "They know that they are not known here, that the best known products are dates and olive oil and also that they do not know much about Brazil, apart from football and carnival," he said.
The agreement should favour the flow of information between Brazil and Tunisia and should make this knowledge not only known among businessmen, which already happens in business, but reach any person interested in learning more about Brazil in Tunisia and about Tunisia in Brazil.
TAP was established in the 1960s and belongs to the government of Tunisia. The organization employs 300 people, 220 journalists and photographers, including correspondents spread all around the country. The agency publishes articles seven days a week in three languages: Arabic, English and French.
*Translated by Mark Ament
