Moldpres - Moldovan Newspapers

Moldpres
The state newsagency Moldpres is a non-budgetary, self-financing organization, founded by the government of the Republic of Moldova

Initially, the Moldovan Telegraphic Agency was founded in the Moldovan Autonomous Soviet Social Republic on 15 January 1935> (according to some documents, in 1931), under a decision by the USSR Council of People’s Commissars. But it was only in 1940, when the Moldovan statehood was finally established, that the then leadership decided to create the agency, which later on became the MOLDPRES agency.

The Moldovan state official news agency, Moldtag (Moldovan telegraphic agency), was set up in 1940, under a decree by the Council of People’s Commissars of the Moldovan Soviet Social Republic (MSSR). At the beginning, the agency had 17 reporters, of whom only two were working in Chisinau, and the others in the republic’s districts. The agency disseminated news in Moldovan and Russian to the Moldovan press, and to other republics of the USSR

The agency functioned under the MSSR Council of Ministers. Being affiliated to the TASS agency (the telegraphic agency of the Soviet Union under the USSR Council of Ministers), the agency took over and released TASS news stories. In 1990 – 1994, during the historic changes that occurred in Moldova, the organization was named the Information Agency Moldova-pres, and it was reporting to the Moldovan parliament.

The agency has been subordinated to the Moldovan government starting 1994. Since then it is called MOLDPRES. The first issue of the Monitorului Oficial of the Republic of Moldova (Moldovan official gazette) was published in 1994 too.

The structure of the State News Agency MOLDPRES was reorganized in July 2001. Later on, in 2003 – 2004, some other changes were made in order to optimise the agency’s management and information policy.

Nowadays, the State News Agency MOLDPRES is a modern media outlet, having three main activity trends: disseminating news stories, photo chronicle, and issuing the Monitorul Oficial. MOLDPRES exchanges information on a contract basis with the news agencies: ITAR-TASS (Russia), Rompres (Romania), BelTa (Belarus) and BTA (Bulgaria).

At present, the institution has more than 100 employees. MOLDPRES owns a Press Centre with a modern conference hall. Since July 2004, the agency has seven departments: News, the Monitorul Oficial, Finance, Marketing, Technologic and Photo Services, Polygraphy, and Management.