9 Feb 2006 12:26

Interfax sets up new agency in Central Europe

Interfax Information Services Group has announced the formation of the Interfax Central Europe News Agency.

The new agency, headquartered in Warsaw, has incorporated the news services in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which were founded about six years ago. It is aimed at ensuring the further expansion of the Group’s activities in the region.
“Interfax is consolidating its presence in the countries of Central Europe, the CIS, and China to satisfy as much as possible the information demands of investors working in Eurasia’s emerging markets,” said Interfax Chairman and CEO Mikhail Komissar. “The establishment of a unified structure operating throughout Central Europe will help improve the quality and intensity of the content of our information products, including regional ones, and expand the geographical framework of the Group’s activities,” he said.
Interfax Central Europe News Agency currently releases 12 English-language news products, including business newswires on the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, and also specialized daily and weekly publications, including energy, IT, and telecommunications bulletins. There are also news products covering events in certain sectors in all countries of the region.
The Central Europe project is supervised by Michal Broniatowski, one of the best specialists in organizing information business on emerging markets. Before joining Interfax in 2004, Broniatowski had headed Reuters office in Russia and the CIS for four years.
Robert Bogdanski, recently president of the major Polish state-run news agency PAP, has been appointed Central Europe News Agency director, and Andrew Hope, a former AP correspondent in Warsaw, has become its editor-in-chief.

***Interfax Information Services Group provides news and other information products that are essential for decision-makers in politics and business. Set up in 1989, Interfax Group brings together a network of national, regional, and specialized news agencies operating throughout Russia and other CIS countries, as well as in China and Central Europe. The Group includes companies and divisions that provide news, analytical services, market data, fundamental information and develop software solutions.
Since early 1990s, Interfax has been the leading provider of up-to-date news from Russia and the countries of the former Soviet Union. It is the most frequently quoted source of information on the region.
In the past several years, Interfax has also won a reputation as the leading provider of political and financial news from emerging markets in Europe and China.

More detailed information on Interfax Information Services Group’s activities is available at
www.interfax.ru, www.interfax.com