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Brazil’s and China’s communication firms expand cooperation

Besides an exchange of contents, EBC and CMG seek joint productions

Published on 14/11/2019 - 15:16 By Agência Brasil - Brasília

Brazil’s Empresa Brasil de Comunicação (EBC) and the China Media Group (CMG) signed a cooperation deal for the exchange of contents and technology, joint productions, cooperative broadcasts and personnel training.

CMG is a state-run group created in 2018 as a result of the merger of China Central Television, China National Radio, and China Radio International. The agreement signed replaces and broadens the previous cooperation between EBC and the old Chinese national radio—signed in 2015 and extended in 2017—will be valid for 60 months (five years) and does not include transfer of funding.

At the signing ceremony that took place at EBC’s headquarters, CMG President Shen Haixiong noted the initiative to forge a partnership with EBC was taken by Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“[He] argued we should foster the exchange among peoples, bolster cultural cooperation, boost exchange in football and Chinese traditional medicine, two characteristic areas of both countries,” Haixiong stated.

“Being a news outlet, we have the important mission of deepening friendship and mutual knowledge among peoples as well as to promote exchange and cooperation in all fields. This is why we’re at a very opportune moment for the media in both countries to start cooperation and benefit mutually,” he went on to say.

Partnership

The partnership with the Chinese was celebrated by EBC Director-President Luiz Carlos Pereira Gomes. In his speech, he noted “the joint coverage of major journalistic event—with exchange of reports—and the chance to broadcast programs promoting social and cultural values of our countries are also crucial areas to be explored as part of this partnership.”

In his view, TV productions and other similar enterprises may help add value to Brazil’s commercial agenda with China. “We export commodities; the yield is very low. We import industrialized goods from them; that’s where 5G is coming from. So this scale is uneven. President Bolsonaro went to China to start adding value in this respect.”

Luiz Carlos Gomes, who lived in China in 2005, when he studied at the National Defense University, reiterated EBC’s key role. “As a public broadcasting company, we’re strategic for the country—considering our reach through public radio, which shows power. If you have communication today, you have power.”

Translation: Fabrício Ferreira -  Edition: Fernando Fraga / Nira Foster

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