His Honorable, OANA President Dr. Ahmad Mukhlis Yusuf,

His Excellency, Yonhap News Agency President & CEO Park Jung-chan, as a host of the OANA Summit Congress.

Distinguished delegates,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the Antara News Agency, I would like to extend our gratitude for the warm welcome and hospitality from the organizing committee for this occasion, especially from the President and CEO of Yonhap News Agency, Mr. Park Jung-chan.

The theme of the Summit "Challenges and opportunity for news agencies" is relevant for current situation and for the future of news agencies. Convergence is a new mantra in media industry today. Multimedia is a necessity in the future of news agencies. It is a key word for us to survive.

Some people may say that news agencies are a dying species. It is a dead industry, a victim of the Internet. When public, when newspapers as traditional customer of news agencies, can get access to information from Internet (say from Google and Yahoo) for free, why should pay subscription fee to the news agencies?

On OANA Executive Board Meeting (EBM) in Baku (2008) and in Tehran (2009), we have already answered these critical questions. We - people of news agencies --do not see the Internet as a dagger to kill us. On the contrary, we will use the Internet as an enabler to leverage our role in media industry. We are still the backbone of the world's information structure, and we will continue to be by delivering more credible and valuable news and stories.

Some of OANA members, including Antara, is not only survive, but also growing in the era of new media and Internet. We are on the right track because we have been using multimedia and adopting convergence. Antara, with a new legal status as a State-Owned Enterprises since 18 July 2007, are going to be the world class multimedia news agency, together with Yonhap and other transnational news agency.

For Antara to be multimedia news agency is a very long process. It takes almost 7 decades until now we are celebrating Antara 73rd anniversary this year. Antara was founded by our founding fathers and freedom fighters on December 13, 1937 to serve the struggle for the national independence from the Dutch colonizers and the Japanese occupation. Antara was the first mass media that announced the proclamation of the Indonesian independence on August 17, 1945.

Headquartered in Jakarta, Antara has bureaus in all the provinces with nearly 200 correspondents who cover news events from the provincial level down to the district, subdistrict and village levels. The agency also has bureaus in New York, Canberra, London, and Kuala Lumpur.

To meet the people's demand on global information, Antara has teamed up with news agencies in the world, such as Yonhap (South Korea), Bernama (Malaysia), AAP (Australia), Reuters (England), AFP (France), DPA (Germany), Xinhua (China), Kyodo (Japan). It is a member of the ANEX (ASEAN News Exchange), OANA (Organization of Asia Pacific News Agencies) and NNN (Non-Aligned News Network).

Everyday, no less than 500 stories covered by its own reporters and 3,000 stories received from its foreign partners and are distributed to its clients through modern technologies, like VSAT, DVB, Internet, electronic mail (email), SMS, and file transfer protocol (ftp).

Our subscribers are 280 newspapers and other print media, 11 nation-wide and 40 local TV stations, 65 radio stations, a dozen news portals, and government and private companies. Our Photo Services produce 56 photos per day and we have 160.000 photos archives. We have photos collection of most of historic events, including flag arising by out first President Soekarno and Vice President Mohammad Hatta during proclamation of Independent Day on 17 August 1945.

Aside from providing news and photos, ANTARA also offers other services, including real time data from stock and money markets (Indonesia Market Quote/IMQ) and press release distribution (PR Wire).

ANTARA also cooperates with well-known information providers, such as Reuters, Bloomberg and Bridge-Telerate. With other news agencies in Asia and the Pacific, ANTARA runs Asia Pulse in providing Asian business news service and operates Asia Net in global press release distribution.

Distinguished Guest,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

To adjust the media convergence era, Antara has made some repositions in a bid to maintain its existence in the media business sector.

These repositions have strategically been implemented by declaring the vision of the Antara News Agency to be a world-class news agency, by providing information-based products to create a knowledge-based society supported by an International-recognized quality management.

In accordance to the vision, our newsroom, namely the next services and all its supporting divisions have been implementing the quality management system of ISO 9001 series since 2008. While our multimedia division will follow to get ISO certified next 2010.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the multimedia sector, some of the Antara provincial bureaus, namely Central Java, East java, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, North Sulawesi, South Sulawesi and West Nusa Tenggara have established news portal with different styles and characteristics.

Several others will follow in 2010. By establishing news portal, these provincial bureaus, among others help the provincial administration to disseminate their policies and other issues. By running the news portal, Antara can enjoy part of the advertorial cake in the country.

Our TV division, meanwhile has established cooperation with SUN TV. The Antara TV programs b blocked the primetime of the station, namely at 21 to 22 PM everyday and disburse it to the other 18 local TV stations.

Antara has also established cooperation with one of the world search engine, yahoo.Indonesia by providing Antara top news.

While in executing our social duty, "Turning Information to Knowledge", in a bid to create a knowledge-based society, Antara division, namely the Antara Photo services has organized many photo exhibitions besides displaying different theme of photos for a periodical time in its gallery. People can enjoy these exhibitions in the Antara gallery for free.

And last but not least, Antara through its publishing division produce books of photo based on the request of our clients, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Religious Affairs and some provincial administration.

Distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.

And that conclude our country report.

Thank you

Secretary General of OANA

SAIFUL HADI

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