ASSOCIATION OF BALKAN NEWS AGENCIES

The Balkan state news agencies after an initiative by Macedonian Press Agency established the Association of the Balkan News Agencies on June 24-26, 1995 which is based in Thessaloniki.

Members of the Association are Macedonian Press Agency and Athens News Agency from Greece, the bulgarian news agencies Balkan Information Pool and Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, the yugoslav Tanjug, the turkish Anadolou, the romanian Rompress and the "Macedonian" Press Bureau form the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
The Slovenian Telegraph Agency and the Albanian Telegraph Agency have also expressed their intention to become members of the association.

The Association's targets are the development of continuous information exchange among the Balkan news agencies and also the creation of the necessary conditions for the better updating of the business world in the Balkans and in the rest of Europe over the existing possibilities for economic cooperation, investment opportunities and development in the Balkan region.

BALKAN DATA BANK

In achieving this goal, Macedonian Press Agency with the concurrent opinion of the Association of Balkan News Agencies is about to establish a Balkan Data Bank. The Data Bank's servers will be in the facilities of Macedonian Press Agency while offices of correspondents will be operating in all the Balkan state capitals and in the cities where news agencies participating in this cooperation are based.

Those offices will supply the Data Bank with news items through an on-line link up and vice versa: The news items and the information received on a daily 24-hour basis form the Balkan Data Bank and from its system of news exchange will be channeled into all the mass media of the countries where those offices will be based.