Information Secretary discusses media cooperation with SARFT
BEIJING: Federal Secretary for Information and Broadcasting Mansoor Sohail here on Thursday held a detailed meeting with Tian Jin, the Vice-Minister of State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) to expand co-operation in media with emphasis to join hands on three major domains.
The three areas in which the Secretary Information emphasised and sought co-operation from his Chinese counterpart were introduction of state of the art China Multimedia Mobile Broadcasting (CMMB) system, Digitisation technology to meet the international obligation by 2014, and capacity building of manpower of both technical and journalistic staff.
Earlier, welcoming the Secretary Information, the Vice Minister stressed that his visit was a new beginning in the media relations between Pakistan and China and would help consolidate friendship in this all time important area. “Relations between our two countries are excellent in every domain,” said Mansoor Sohail, adding: “we want to promote co-operation particularly as far as my domain is concerned, the information and communication, radio and television.”
The Secretary Information said the government paid a great deal of importance and encouraged the media, as a result there were 63 television channels at present functioning in the country while 20 more were in the pipeline. In the same way there were 163 radio stations broadcasting various programmes at the moment, he added, which demonstrated the importance the government attached to the media.
He said that to meet the growing demand of trained manpower for the Pakistani media, “we do need their training, digitalisation technology and to achieve these objectives, we hope SARFT could help us.” Regarding CMMB, Mansoor Sohail said it was the most modern technology and Chinese assistance in this domain would be welcomed.
Referring to the memorandum of understanding (MoU) for co-operation in media signed during President Asif Ali Zardari recent visit to China, the Secretary Information said that his ministry was keenly working on it for early implementation. China, he said was most trusted and close friend of Pakistan and helped us in every hour of need.
He said, “we would also welcome and ready to provide maximum facilitates to Chinese media in our country as per law of the land.” He informed the Vice-Minister that there were many international media outlets that were availing down linking facility in Pakistan, and we would welcome Chinese electronic media to come forward and avail of this facility.
Vice Minister Tian Jin said the state run CCTV and a number of regional televisions and radio stations in China were broadcasting many programmes on Pakistan especially on it rich culture. He said a delegation of SARFT was leaving for Pakistan in the month of September to hold talks and to further push the co-operation in media.
He said SARFT was regularly holding workshops for technical and journalist staff and we would welcome that Pakistan should also participate in those seminars and workshop to get first hand information on latest development in media. The Vice Minister informed Secretary Information that his visit had opened a new chapter and would greatly help in development of co-operative relations between Pakistan and China in the field of media. The Secretary Information invited Tian Jing and Deputy Director General Zhou Guizhen of the Department of International Co-operation to Pakistan which they graciously accepted.
Source: Business Recorder
Date:7/30/2010
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