site.btaBTA to Open Press Club in Southwestern City of Samokov

Bulgarian News Agency (BTA) Director General Kiril Valchev and Samokov Mayor Vladimir Georgiev Tuesday signed an agreement under which the municipality will provide a hall for a BTA national press club in the town.

At the signing ceremony Georgiev praised BTA's work for opening national press clubs in regional centres, and in the case with Samokov, in cities that are not regional capitals. In Georgiev's words, the future BTA press club will benefit not only Samokov and the municipality, but the busy tourist business in the area and the nearby resorts which welcome many foreign visitors. "This is of crucial importance because the information which reaches the people from BTA will be much more in quantity and easily accessible," Georgiev said, speaking to a BTA reporter. 

Valchev said that the press club in Samokov will be BTA's second national press club that is not in a regional capital. The first such club was opened in Kazanluk, South Central Bulgaria. Valchev also said that BTA has press clubs in 21 out of 26 regional capitals. "The idea is that Bulgaria has about 15 cities with population of more than 25,000 people, where systematic information about what is happening there in practice is absent. Samokov is such a city, which although located very close to Sofia, seldom attracts the attention of the national media," Valchev said.

"Our next big goal is to ensure that these national press clubs serve not only as offices of BTA's correspondents, as venues for news conference of diverse institutions, but as venues for other events as well. BTA has a series of events it organizes with the European Parliament and the European Commission which present cohesion funds and projects implemented under them," said the BTA Director General, adding that the press club in Samokov will also serve as a location for training local journalists. BTA now starts such a project with the assistance of the European Parliament, Valchev said.