Tanjug, Xinhua exchange agreement on cooperation

BELGRADE - In the presence of the presidents of Serbia and China, Aleksandar Vucic and Xi Jinping, Serbia's Tanjug News Agency and the Chinese news agency Xinhua exchanged an agreement on cooperation in Belgrade on Wednesday.

Under the agreement, signed last week, the agencies will be exchanging video, photo and text materials.

The agreement, which renews decades-long cooperation between the agencies, was signed by Tanjug News Agency Managing Director Manja Grcic and Xinhua President Fu Hua.

Even though he never travelled to China, Tanjug radio operator Ilio de Luka has gone down in history as the agency's first reporter from the Asian country.

On January 5 1948, he caught a radio transmission by Xinhua for the first time.

This evolved into systematic practice that remained in place until October 1949.

Information received by de Luka was regularly used for Tanjug's news service and relayed to news agencies around the world.

That way, Tanjug was providing objective information to Western countries about the closing stage of the Chinese Revolution and the subsequent declaration of the People's Republic of China.

Between 1953 and the late 1990s, Tanjug had a permanent correspondent from Beijing.